Why Is It Rocket Science That Laws Should Apply Online Too?(torrentfreak.com)
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Why Is It Rocket Science That Laws Should Apply Online Too?
http://torrentfreak.com/why-is-it-rocket-science-that-laws-should-apply-online-too-110402/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Torrentfreak+%28Torrentfreak%29&utm_content=Google+Reader
15 comments
> [...] such laws, as the author of the subject article accurately points out, would never fly in the non-internet realm.
The logical conclusion is that the non-internet realm is actually enough to make copyright unenforcible.Suppose the internet has been shut down. I can still hand my neighbor a USB stick. I can still snail-mail my buddy an external drive.
The intellectual "property" lobby knows that. That's why they wanted to push something as ridiculous as the SSSCA. For those too young to remember, here's the gist of it: "It is unlawful to manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide or otherwise traffic in any interactive digital device that does not include and utilize certified security technologies" More here: http://xenon.stanford.edu/~ruchika/dmca/theFairyTaleGetsWors...
The logical conclusion is that the non-internet realm is actually enough to make copyright unenforcible.Suppose the internet has been shut down. I can still hand my neighbor a USB stick. I can still snail-mail my buddy an external drive.
The intellectual "property" lobby knows that. That's why they wanted to push something as ridiculous as the SSSCA. For those too young to remember, here's the gist of it: "It is unlawful to manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide or otherwise traffic in any interactive digital device that does not include and utilize certified security technologies" More here: http://xenon.stanford.edu/~ruchika/dmca/theFairyTaleGetsWors...
"Suppose the internet has been shut down. I can still hand my neighbor a USB stick. I can still snail-mail my buddy an external drive."
As I see things, there's an important difference there.
Just like home taping didn't kill the record industry, and videotapes didn't kill the tv/movie industry, sharing usb sticks or hard drives with your circle of friends isn't going to kill any creative industry either.
As is common with computers, the sheer difference in scale of digitally sharing over the internet _does_ make a difference.
With physically sharing storage media, there's a small but not zero marginal cost each time you share something. A few bucks worth of usb stick or a few tens of dollars worth of hard drive, which you no longer have use of while your friends has it or it's in transit. That's going to practically limit the sphere of your sharing - think about your own social graph, how many of your "facebook friends" would you actually send a drive full of tunes or movies to? I know the subset of my friendlist that I'd go to the trouble to send a few bucks worth of usb stick is a reasonably small portion of the people that Facebook calls "my friends".
That's a _very_ different thing to what happens when you dump your entire media collection into the /torrent directory on your always-on campus network connected machine. The internet enables zero marginal cost sharing, which inevitably leads to orders of magnitude wider sharing. I suspect the Dunbar number of ~150 real social connections is the very top end of what most people would consider to be a sensible sized physical-media-sharing-network, and realistically most people would probably stop short at 10 or 15 individuals you'd expend the effort to share with if sharing required you to actually send real-but-small-cost atoms to do it.
(curiously, or perhaps obviously, these suspicions about sharing network sizes closely map my personal experience ~30 years ago with sharing compact cassettes and vinyl LPs in highschool in the early/mid '80s. There were 6 or 8 people who I'd lend/borrow LPs between, and perhaps a dozen more that I'd lend or copy tapes for.)
As I see things, there's an important difference there.
Just like home taping didn't kill the record industry, and videotapes didn't kill the tv/movie industry, sharing usb sticks or hard drives with your circle of friends isn't going to kill any creative industry either.
As is common with computers, the sheer difference in scale of digitally sharing over the internet _does_ make a difference.
With physically sharing storage media, there's a small but not zero marginal cost each time you share something. A few bucks worth of usb stick or a few tens of dollars worth of hard drive, which you no longer have use of while your friends has it or it's in transit. That's going to practically limit the sphere of your sharing - think about your own social graph, how many of your "facebook friends" would you actually send a drive full of tunes or movies to? I know the subset of my friendlist that I'd go to the trouble to send a few bucks worth of usb stick is a reasonably small portion of the people that Facebook calls "my friends".
That's a _very_ different thing to what happens when you dump your entire media collection into the /torrent directory on your always-on campus network connected machine. The internet enables zero marginal cost sharing, which inevitably leads to orders of magnitude wider sharing. I suspect the Dunbar number of ~150 real social connections is the very top end of what most people would consider to be a sensible sized physical-media-sharing-network, and realistically most people would probably stop short at 10 or 15 individuals you'd expend the effort to share with if sharing required you to actually send real-but-small-cost atoms to do it.
(curiously, or perhaps obviously, these suspicions about sharing network sizes closely map my personal experience ~30 years ago with sharing compact cassettes and vinyl LPs in highschool in the early/mid '80s. There were 6 or 8 people who I'd lend/borrow LPs between, and perhaps a dozen more that I'd lend or copy tapes for.)
The record industry rose up to solve a problem: artists needed their music recorded and distributed. Those problems are solved by computers and the internet. It's so cheap to record an album these days its ridiculous, as opposed to 40 years ago when you needed half a million dollars just for a tape machine. The overhead to make music has gone down, and so should the price to listen to it.
> Just like home taping didn't kill the record industry, and videotapes didn't kill the tv/movie industry, sharing usb sticks or hard drives with your circle of friends isn't going to kill any creative industry either.
I don't believe the internet has yet killed them, either, nor do I think it likely to. Jack Valenti once said that the VCR was like the "Boston strangler" even though they got so much money from tapes back in the day and even more from DVDs and BDs today.
I don't believe the internet has yet killed them, either, nor do I think it likely to. Jack Valenti once said that the VCR was like the "Boston strangler" even though they got so much money from tapes back in the day and even more from DVDs and BDs today.
Certainly one individual will only share with a few of his/her friends, but those friends probably have other friends, etc. After all, we're only six circles of friends away from just about any other person on the planet. With torrenting, the same total numbers of people may be sharing, just in a larger group at once.
Hmm...well, then maybe there's hope:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/08/100825174102.ht...
(article on "dry water")
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/08/100825174102.ht...
(article on "dry water")
I don't see how an article about water encased in silica is relevant. Is it just because it contains the words "dry water" or is there something else?
Playing of the quote in the comment I replied to:
"trying to make digital files uncopyable is like trying to make water not wet."
"trying to make digital files uncopyable is like trying to make water not wet."
I might have missed it, but did he specify whose laws should apply?
Say I send his postcard from Sweden to America, and it goes via China. Whose laws apply?
Say I send his postcard from Sweden to America, and it goes via China. Whose laws apply?
Wherever the letter is at the moment the laws of that country will apply.
I can't really argue that that doesn't make the most sense, but, at the same time, I also find it kind of scary. In essence, I obviously choose the start and end points of the transit, but I have no control over where my packets go in between.
Bandwidth is so cheap that data/IP are effectively non-scarce. We've never before written laws governing the exchange of non-scarce goods. So the old laws often seem not to fit.
What's the betting that when replicators like reprap get good/useful, traditional manufacturing industries will try to get them banned?
So, basically, they want privacy laws online to work similar to privacy laws offline--so that they can ignore copyright laws online that they would not be able to so easily ignore offline?
No, not quite. They/we want the same kind of justice so our fundamental expectations or rights preserved -- and if that does not suit copyright, then it is copyright that must give way.
Of course it may not be easy to square the two. But the relative priority really ought to be rather clear. Copyright as it is is only a particular choice, but matters of personal freedom are things we take to be deeply rooted, and not submissive to merely commercial expediency.
Of course it may not be easy to square the two. But the relative priority really ought to be rather clear. Copyright as it is is only a particular choice, but matters of personal freedom are things we take to be deeply rooted, and not submissive to merely commercial expediency.
>No, not quite. They/we want the same kind of justice so our fundamental expectations or rights preserved -- and if that does not suit copyright, then it is copyright that must give way.
it is somewhat false dichotomy - the copyright itself has no conflict with the fundamental rights. It is the modern way of enforcing the copyright on the Internet and investigating/prosecuting the copyright violations there that is violating fundamental rights.
Somehow due process gets relaxed when it comes to copyright violations. Though may be the strength of the due process was only perceived as such if one considers all these cases when an Afro wearing guy would get arrested a week later and get a life (or even death) for the crime committed by a bald perpetrator. 30+ year ago society felt that these guys weren't worth the due process and looks like today the society thinks that "the ones who copy from the Internet or the ones who have something to hide" aren't worth the due process.
it is somewhat false dichotomy - the copyright itself has no conflict with the fundamental rights. It is the modern way of enforcing the copyright on the Internet and investigating/prosecuting the copyright violations there that is violating fundamental rights.
Somehow due process gets relaxed when it comes to copyright violations. Though may be the strength of the due process was only perceived as such if one considers all these cases when an Afro wearing guy would get arrested a week later and get a life (or even death) for the crime committed by a bald perpetrator. 30+ year ago society felt that these guys weren't worth the due process and looks like today the society thinks that "the ones who copy from the Internet or the ones who have something to hide" aren't worth the due process.
Copyright is actually more deeply rooted in the Constitution (of the US) than those other rights; the Bill of Rights happened later, after all.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Clause
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Clause
Not exactly. The Bill of Rights was added later to explicitly identify a number of the most important rights of the people. These were originally implied; everything not mentioned in the Constitution is a right of the people.
>everything not mentioned in the Constitution is a right of the people.
Prior to the Bill of Rights, that was not the case. As I mentioned elsewhere, the "everything else is a right of the states or the people" clause is in the tenth amendment.
Edit: AND in the Ninth Amendment: "The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."
Prior to the Bill of Rights, that was not the case. As I mentioned elsewhere, the "everything else is a right of the states or the people" clause is in the tenth amendment.
Edit: AND in the Ninth Amendment: "The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."
Yes, the 10th Amendment makes explicit the fact that all rights not mentioned in the Constitution are inherent rights of the States and the People. This was implicit before the Bill of Rights, but it lead to a lot of confusion. At the time, most governments had all rights implicitly with a sovereign, and the people only had the rights that were explicitly granted to them. Our founders intended to flip that relationship, but since many people didn't get it, they had to add the Bill of Rights. Unfortunately many people still don't get it, despite what the 10th Amendment says.
Deeply rooted does not imply deeply rooted in the constitution of the United States.
I believe the US mindset is supposed to be that the constitution does not give you rights - rights are inherent. the constitution sets limits on what rights the government can take away.
Doesn't it also have a clause that says anything not declared in here are relegated to the states, or to the people?
PEOPLE have an expectation of privacy. PEOPLE make laws.
I believe the US mindset is supposed to be that the constitution does not give you rights - rights are inherent. the constitution sets limits on what rights the government can take away.
Doesn't it also have a clause that says anything not declared in here are relegated to the states, or to the people?
PEOPLE have an expectation of privacy. PEOPLE make laws.
>Doesn't it also have a clause that says anything not declared in here are relegated to the states, or to the people?
That would be the tenth amendment, yes.
That would be the tenth amendment, yes.
You're mistaken about how that works. Amendments amend what comes before them. In the most absurd case, that logic could be used to say that the 3/5ths compromise is "more deeply rooted in the Constitution" than the 14th Amendment.
Courts have long recognized that the Copyright Clause exists "in tension" with the First Amendment and, therefore, have tried their best to harmonize the two.
Courts have long recognized that the Copyright Clause exists "in tension" with the First Amendment and, therefore, have tried their best to harmonize the two.
"Courts have long recognized that the Copyright Clause exists "in tension" with the First Amendment and, therefore, have tried their best to harmonize the two."
Can I get a citation for that? It seems very interesting, and I hadn't heard of it before.
Can I get a citation for that? It seems very interesting, and I hadn't heard of it before.
Certainly. Here are a couple:
http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/analysis.aspx?id=13828
http://www.slais.ubc.ca/courses/libr500/10-11-wt1/www/C_Chas...
There's also a lot of stuff on LexisNexis, but that costs quite a bit of money unless you know someone with a subscription. This one appears more relevant, but quotes me a price of $12.50+tax:
"A REGULATORY THEORY OF COPYRIGHT: AVOIDING A FIRST AMENDMENT CONFLICT"
https://litigation-essentials.lexisnexis.com/webcd/app?actio...
I should mention that other courts have said that they don't see the interplay between the Copyright Clause & First Amendment as "tension", but instead view things like fair use as "safety valves" that prevent the two from being in conflict.
Whatever words you use to say it, the fact is that the courts do their best to uphold both, rather than choose one or the other. Whether one sees the considerations in reconciling the two as "tension" or believes that their approach harmonizes the two, it's something the courts weigh carefully.
http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/analysis.aspx?id=13828
http://www.slais.ubc.ca/courses/libr500/10-11-wt1/www/C_Chas...
There's also a lot of stuff on LexisNexis, but that costs quite a bit of money unless you know someone with a subscription. This one appears more relevant, but quotes me a price of $12.50+tax:
"A REGULATORY THEORY OF COPYRIGHT: AVOIDING A FIRST AMENDMENT CONFLICT"
https://litigation-essentials.lexisnexis.com/webcd/app?actio...
I should mention that other courts have said that they don't see the interplay between the Copyright Clause & First Amendment as "tension", but instead view things like fair use as "safety valves" that prevent the two from being in conflict.
Whatever words you use to say it, the fact is that the courts do their best to uphold both, rather than choose one or the other. Whether one sees the considerations in reconciling the two as "tension" or believes that their approach harmonizes the two, it's something the courts weigh carefully.
Who has ever been a part of a mass lawsuit for making a copy of a DVD and giving it to a friend?
Probably no one, since people copying DVDs offline generally only give them to a handful of friends, tops.
Try making many thousands of physical copies of DVDs and handing them out to random strangers, and I'll bet you'd get sued--and almost no one would be outraged that you got sued.
Do it on the internet, and suddenly people think you are a victim.
The same thing happens with defamation, too. If I printed out a bunch of flyers accusing you of something horrible and not true, and posted them around your town, very few people would have a problem with you suing me, and with me losing.
However, if instead I post the same things about you on an online forum, and you sue, then to a lot of people will think you are the bad guy trying to stop free speech.
The general principle in the article, that law should really be the same online and offline, is a good one. After all, law is mostly about how people interact. The medium should not matter. All the internet really changes is that our actions can have a wider impact, and that some things are a lot easier to do on the internet.
Try making many thousands of physical copies of DVDs and handing them out to random strangers, and I'll bet you'd get sued--and almost no one would be outraged that you got sued.
Do it on the internet, and suddenly people think you are a victim.
The same thing happens with defamation, too. If I printed out a bunch of flyers accusing you of something horrible and not true, and posted them around your town, very few people would have a problem with you suing me, and with me losing.
However, if instead I post the same things about you on an online forum, and you sue, then to a lot of people will think you are the bad guy trying to stop free speech.
The general principle in the article, that law should really be the same online and offline, is a good one. After all, law is mostly about how people interact. The medium should not matter. All the internet really changes is that our actions can have a wider impact, and that some things are a lot easier to do on the internet.
People online don't make thousands of copies. The most I have ever made is about 5. The most most people make is around 1 or 2. I have never seen a non-seeder with a ratio of 1000. (To upload 1000 copies of a DVD on 768kbps DSL would take over a year!)
In addition, the lawsuits are based on sending a few bytes of the file to someone who has a legal right to those bytes (the company that released the movie).
Bittorrent is like making a copy of a DVD, smashing it into a thousand pieces, and giving each pies to a random passerby. When you get sued, it's because one of those passerbys is a laweyer for the company that released the movie. And the reason you are being sued for $millions is because he now has that shattered fragment of a DVD.
Pretty shaky.
In addition, the lawsuits are based on sending a few bytes of the file to someone who has a legal right to those bytes (the company that released the movie).
Bittorrent is like making a copy of a DVD, smashing it into a thousand pieces, and giving each pies to a random passerby. When you get sued, it's because one of those passerbys is a laweyer for the company that released the movie. And the reason you are being sued for $millions is because he now has that shattered fragment of a DVD.
Pretty shaky.
> In addition, the lawsuits are based on sending a few bytes of the file to someone who has a legal right to those bytes (the company that released the movie).
The lawsuits are based on unauthorized creation and distribution of copies of copyrighted material. What you describe is part of the evidence used to prove that. If the defendant wishes to argue that they normally ran their P2P software in a mode that did not actually share anything, and it was only some weird glitch that one time when the movie company happened to be sniffing that led to an accidental release of bits, they are free to try it, and the jury is free to decide its probative value.
> Bittorrent is like making a copy of a DVD, smashing it into a thousand pieces, and giving each pies to a random passerby.
If you did that, you would no longer have the pieces that you distributed, which breaks the analogy.
The lawsuits are based on unauthorized creation and distribution of copies of copyrighted material. What you describe is part of the evidence used to prove that. If the defendant wishes to argue that they normally ran their P2P software in a mode that did not actually share anything, and it was only some weird glitch that one time when the movie company happened to be sniffing that led to an accidental release of bits, they are free to try it, and the jury is free to decide its probative value.
> Bittorrent is like making a copy of a DVD, smashing it into a thousand pieces, and giving each pies to a random passerby.
If you did that, you would no longer have the pieces that you distributed, which breaks the analogy.
Read that again. The copies are given away. It's a perfectly good analogy, and if you want to get really picky it's also accurate on a technical level. An ephemeral copy in memory and TCP is made, given away, and lost.
OK, I did misread it. It's still not a good analogy, though, because if you made a physical copy of a DVD and smashed it and gave the pieces to random people, they would be useless. Even if a large number of people were doing the same thing, it would be very hard to reassemble the pieces.
With bittorrent, the pieces are all carefully constructed so that they will be easy to put back together, and everyone doing it is "smashing" their DVD the same way, so you can put together pieces from different people.
With bittorrent, the pieces are all carefully constructed so that they will be easy to put back together, and everyone doing it is "smashing" their DVD the same way, so you can put together pieces from different people.
I think the big difference here is that in the physical world all that work that lead up to distributing 1000s of DVDs carries much more weight to the person making the copies. With Napster it was literally just start the program and point it at your music folder. People don't see it as "fair" that you can click twice and be doing the same crime as someone who methodically collected all the DVD copying hardware, bought disks, made the copies, found distributors and systematically created a business whose purpose and intent was completely clear. I think the same logic for people applies to people posting in forum. Computers have drastically increased the productivity of everything, including breaking the law, to the point where it was so easy there was no time to think about what they were doing.
"These are civil liberties that our forefathers fought, bled, and died to give us."
The poster is Swedish. Sweden's last war was fought in 1814 to occupy Norway. Before that it fought in the coalition against Napoleon so that it could demand Norway in the peace settlement. Previous to that Sweden fought in the Great Northern War of 1700-1721 to maintain and extend its Baltic empire and in the 30 Years War to defend Protestantism in Germany and to seize the basis for said empire.
I suggest that the existence of civil liberties and democracy in Sweden has more to do with peaceful activism and good government that with bloodshed and violent struggle.
The poster is Swedish. Sweden's last war was fought in 1814 to occupy Norway. Before that it fought in the coalition against Napoleon so that it could demand Norway in the peace settlement. Previous to that Sweden fought in the Great Northern War of 1700-1721 to maintain and extend its Baltic empire and in the 30 Years War to defend Protestantism in Germany and to seize the basis for said empire.
I suggest that the existence of civil liberties and democracy in Sweden has more to do with peaceful activism and good government that with bloodshed and violent struggle.
> The poster is Swedish.
Sweden is also an intrinsic part of Western Civilisation. People in other western countries have fought many wars, and many civil rights battles -- both violent and non-violent -- over the last two centuries, to get where we are today.
> the existence of civil liberties and democracy in Sweden has more to do with peaceful activism and good government that with bloodshed and violent struggle
Both have their place; it's a question of whatever tactics win in a given situation. To use a modern example, the Egyptian people were able to overthrow their dictator with a good deal less bloodshed than the Libyan people are.
Sweden is also an intrinsic part of Western Civilisation. People in other western countries have fought many wars, and many civil rights battles -- both violent and non-violent -- over the last two centuries, to get where we are today.
> the existence of civil liberties and democracy in Sweden has more to do with peaceful activism and good government that with bloodshed and violent struggle
Both have their place; it's a question of whatever tactics win in a given situation. To use a modern example, the Egyptian people were able to overthrow their dictator with a good deal less bloodshed than the Libyan people are.
I suggest that the existence of civil liberties in many countries has to do with the example set by the American war of independence, and the French revolution (which was itself inspired by the other one).
I have to say, I'm not smart enough to understand this "rocket science." Laws exist because they accomplish the goals that we as a society want to accomplish.
There's nothing intrinsically valuable about writing your name on a certain piece of the envelope - it just helps us accomplish our goals of privacy, etc. If changing technology means that we need new laws to accomplish our goals then there's nothing wrong with that.
There's nothing intrinsically valuable about writing your name on a certain piece of the envelope - it just helps us accomplish our goals of privacy, etc. If changing technology means that we need new laws to accomplish our goals then there's nothing wrong with that.
Because exchange of information over the internet fits more existing models than mail delivery, that's why it's a hard question to answer. It's a bit like mail delivery, but also shares characteristics with radio and television broadcasting, manufacturing, and distribution.
There is some truth there, but let us be clear about something:
The hard question to answer is how best to arrange cultural production. The easy question to answer is whether we should surrender fundamental expectations/rights to a few corporate interests.
The hard question to answer is how best to arrange cultural production. The easy question to answer is whether we should surrender fundamental expectations/rights to a few corporate interests.
This analogy seems a bit poor,
The laws preserving the integrity of postal service in most countries stem from the fact the government manages the post.
If the government managed the internet to the same degree perhaps the analogy would hold. The question this begs is: Do you want the government to run the internet versus provider companies?
If the government managed the internet to the same degree perhaps the analogy would hold. The question this begs is: Do you want the government to run the internet versus provider companies?
This guy's obviously never tried posting anything to Italy.
//Independently discovering all music and movie under
//a Tera-byte of data
for(int i=0; i < 2^(1099511627776x8); i++){
Node *binary = convert_to_binary(i);
write_raw(binary);
send_email_to_friends("I own number: %d".i);
}
Implicitly, they are claiming they own a number.
//a Tera-byte of data
for(int i=0; i < 2^(1099511627776x8); i++){
Node *binary = convert_to_binary(i);
write_raw(binary);
send_email_to_friends("I own number: %d".i);
}
Implicitly, they are claiming they own a number.
All of the technical discussions about this aside this really makes no sense. To me it sounds a lot like claiming that you cannot own letters hence you cannot own an essay you wrote.
Sam Hughes had an interesting perspective on this: http://qntm.org/number
Basically, meaningful numbers are so sparse that to claim there's nothing special about them is ridiculous.
Basically, meaningful numbers are so sparse that to claim there's nothing special about them is ridiculous.
A being in the 7th dimension wouldn't think nothing of it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySBaYMESb8o&NR=1&feat...
Are you discriminating against me cause I'm a 3 dimensional being?[Being facetious, I actually was trying to come up with a good argument to defend against a argument like the one given before posting.]
Are you discriminating against me cause I'm a 3 dimensional being?[Being facetious, I actually was trying to come up with a good argument to defend against a argument like the one given before posting.]
You know that it takes a lot less than "2^(1099511627776x8)" bytes of storage to record that number? And while the entire sequence takes about that much space, it's only one such sequence, hardly "all music and movies".
IANAL, but it seems that mens rea (intending to commit a crime) would play a big role in this area. While you are correct in saying that Abbey Road might under some form of digital encoding turn out to be the number "34", this wouldn't make distributing files with the number 34 illegal unless you can demonstrate that the people sharing the number knew what it was for and how it was encoded.
Otherwise, it would seem that you could infringe copyrights all day and as long as the traffic was encrypted then you could argue that you're not sending MP3 files, just numbers that after some massaging with keys turns out to be data useful for feeding to an MP3 Player. (Heck, you could probably slippery slope the analogy to simply taking the twos compliment of the digital representation)
So unless I'm mistaken, they are not claiming to own a number, but rather, are claiming to own "imaginary" property in that anything digital that resembles and is being _used_ to replicate the artist's performance is infringement and thus illegal.
But I agree that the whole thing is still crazy and full of logical loop-holes.
EDIT: For a similar concept that's brewing, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_prime
Otherwise, it would seem that you could infringe copyrights all day and as long as the traffic was encrypted then you could argue that you're not sending MP3 files, just numbers that after some massaging with keys turns out to be data useful for feeding to an MP3 Player. (Heck, you could probably slippery slope the analogy to simply taking the twos compliment of the digital representation)
So unless I'm mistaken, they are not claiming to own a number, but rather, are claiming to own "imaginary" property in that anything digital that resembles and is being _used_ to replicate the artist's performance is infringement and thus illegal.
But I agree that the whole thing is still crazy and full of logical loop-holes.
EDIT: For a similar concept that's brewing, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_prime
IANAL, but from what I've read, the original legislative intent, in most jurisdictions, is that the process by which an artefact is created (including a stream of bits sent over a network or data sent on a block device) rather than the data itself which makes something a protected work - and it is the process of copying that is restricted.
If you invent the exact same sequence completely independently, you own it. However, the problem of looking at data and saying that copying happened is one of inference; if I posted exactly the same comment you just wrote, I could have independently come up with your copyrighted comment, and hence own the copyright, but the much more likely explanation is that I copied your comment, and so judges and juries infer copying from similarity that they believe is statistically unlikely.
So if person A generates a random string from the uniform distribution, and communicates it securely to a trusted person, B, who XORs the string with your comment, and A shares the random string with the public, while B shares the XORed string, technically only B commits direct copyright infringement, because B created a derivative work by XORing, and broadcast that work (copying). If done properly, no one could prove which person was A and which was B however. In practice, however, it is likely that if both people acted with intent to distribute the work, they would both be at least secondarily liable.
If you invent the exact same sequence completely independently, you own it. However, the problem of looking at data and saying that copying happened is one of inference; if I posted exactly the same comment you just wrote, I could have independently come up with your copyrighted comment, and hence own the copyright, but the much more likely explanation is that I copied your comment, and so judges and juries infer copying from similarity that they believe is statistically unlikely.
So if person A generates a random string from the uniform distribution, and communicates it securely to a trusted person, B, who XORs the string with your comment, and A shares the random string with the public, while B shares the XORed string, technically only B commits direct copyright infringement, because B created a derivative work by XORing, and broadcast that work (copying). If done properly, no one could prove which person was A and which was B however. In practice, however, it is likely that if both people acted with intent to distribute the work, they would both be at least secondarily liable.
No, that is incorrect. The number produced above is not a copy of any copyrighted work. You would in fact be free to distribute it with no risk at all of liability for copyright infringement. Let's call your number S.
Yes, somewhere in S is a bit string that happens to match the bit string of almost any particular encoding of almost any particular movie or musical performance. If you just distribute S to someone, they have no way practically, or even reasonably theoretically, to actually find those strings.
Now, if you gave a copy of S to someone AND told them "start at offset X and take Y bits and save these as a file with the extension .mp3", and the result of that matched a particular copyrighted piece of music then guess what--copyright infringement (depending on how you found X and Y). Specifically, if the procedure was to start with the copyrighted piece of music and somehow search the string for it to determine X, then distributing (X,Y,S) would be copyright infringement.
No one is claiming, even implicitly, to own S.
Yes, somewhere in S is a bit string that happens to match the bit string of almost any particular encoding of almost any particular movie or musical performance. If you just distribute S to someone, they have no way practically, or even reasonably theoretically, to actually find those strings.
Now, if you gave a copy of S to someone AND told them "start at offset X and take Y bits and save these as a file with the extension .mp3", and the result of that matched a particular copyrighted piece of music then guess what--copyright infringement (depending on how you found X and Y). Specifically, if the procedure was to start with the copyrighted piece of music and somehow search the string for it to determine X, then distributing (X,Y,S) would be copyright infringement.
No one is claiming, even implicitly, to own S.
Indeed the number itself does not necessarily infringe copyright.
A really simple example is to imagine giving the number "N" encoding a movie in divx format to someone in the year 1995, since they have no means of converting the number to a continuous stream of video and sound (a video animation), the number is useless to them.
On the other hand, you can give them the same movie encoded in an older format (mpeg2?); this will be an entirely different number "Q" bearing almost absolutely no relationship to "N", but it will still be the same movie.
The presence of different encoding formats is a proof that copyright does not restrict what number you reproduce.
This could be kinda worse though, because it could imply that copyright restricts the distribution of ideas.
A really simple example is to imagine giving the number "N" encoding a movie in divx format to someone in the year 1995, since they have no means of converting the number to a continuous stream of video and sound (a video animation), the number is useless to them.
On the other hand, you can give them the same movie encoded in an older format (mpeg2?); this will be an entirely different number "Q" bearing almost absolutely no relationship to "N", but it will still be the same movie.
The presence of different encoding formats is a proof that copyright does not restrict what number you reproduce.
This could be kinda worse though, because it could imply that copyright restricts the distribution of ideas.
The various numbers that represent the work in different formats would all be related through a single mathematical property (in that when they are processed with various algorithms, the results are all approximations of each other). It's turtles^Wmath all the way down.
Not necessarily so.
Consider a loss-less encoding represented by A: it can be encoded in a lossy-manner in two different ways, one would produce B, the other would produce C.
Without know what A was, there's no way to link B to C.
Consider also that different versions of the same movie could different (hard-coded) subtitles, extra/deleted scenes, different resolutions, etc.
If you consider all the different permutations of the movie and then consider that each one can be encoded in many different ways (lossy encoding), you'll see that there's no single number that can be said to represent the movie.
Consider a loss-less encoding represented by A: it can be encoded in a lossy-manner in two different ways, one would produce B, the other would produce C.
Without know what A was, there's no way to link B to C.
Consider also that different versions of the same movie could different (hard-coded) subtitles, extra/deleted scenes, different resolutions, etc.
If you consider all the different permutations of the movie and then consider that each one can be encoded in many different ways (lossy encoding), you'll see that there's no single number that can be said to represent the movie.
I didn't say there is a single number, I said they all share a similar mthematical property: when processed by there respective algorithms, then processed again by another complex algorithm (you), they are seen to be related.
If we have a lossy encoding so poor that you can no longer recognize it, then I'm fine with saying it is "no longer that movie".
If we have a lossy encoding so poor that you can no longer recognize it, then I'm fine with saying it is "no longer that movie".
Actually, YouTube seems to do a decent job of linking B to C with its automated infringement scanners.
You have only begun your journey of understanding why "owning" information is ludicrous. Give it time.
I'm curious. Do you think giving someone a large block of marble is equivalent to giving them Michelangelo's David?
Clearly we have to outlaw chisels!
(edit: to be clear: j/k - I think most of the arguments about 'information is meant/wants to be free' are pretty funny. I'm yet to have one proponent share their bank details and password with me :)
(edit: to be clear: j/k - I think most of the arguments about 'information is meant/wants to be free' are pretty funny. I'm yet to have one proponent share their bank details and password with me :)
If you reproduced David with a block of marble and a milling machine, would Michelangelo have a right to be upset?
I got confused with the title. Why is "IT" or "IN" Rocket....?
It's not rocket, it's rocket science. I.E. a complex or difficult mental exercise or field or study, used frequently in an ironic sense to suggest that a task should be easy or simple because it is not rocket science. (definition from wikipedia)
Why do people use this tired old cliche. Surely it's not heisenberg debugging to come up with something other than rocket science (or brain surgery?)
Because people don't know what "heisenberg debugging" (or whatever you use) is? After all, your primary objective is not to be original, but to be understood.
Right, it's a figurative expression for a reason. There's a balance where the listener/reader must understand the literal sense of the phrase to understanding the rhetorical meaning. If the listener/reader doesn't understand "heisenberg debugging" in any relevant context, they can't easily find the second meaning in the figure of speech. I'd go so far as arguing that figures of speech need to approach cliche entirely because of this necessity. It's not rocket science.
Point taken. What people should say is "it's easy" or "it's not difficult".
Continue with that line of reasoning very far at all and you'll be left with something that lacks any flavor or passion. Something very close to Newspeak.
What people should say is what they already say. English doesn't have a central authority, it's defined by common usage.
What people should say is what they already say. English doesn't have a central authority, it's defined by common usage.
Analogies with the past are not a good guide. The internet is nothing like the previous broadcast/communication mediums. Imho, we don't need to look back into the old practices to create the laws of the digital realm. This is uncharted territory . People need to step back, look at the broader picture and figure out the new laws that will allow having a functioning economy in the online world. In the process, the current content industry will have to die, sorry
The partial truth of this leads to some major fallacies. There are some things that good techies understand, like abstraction, that lead to more general solutions. Laws on the books tend to be tied very closely with specific implementations. Here's an example that's been with us for a long time: junk fax laws v. spam emails. Junk faxes and spam are essentially the same problem, but with different coefficients in the equation. What spam is not is a whole new problem never before encountered, requiring novel and special legislation. By treating each technological innovation as completely unique, each "solution" takes a NIH approach. This also provides a yet another venue for special interest groups (MPAA, RIAA, et al) to advocate their agendas on every new issue even though the core ideas have already been explored.
Yes, the internet has given us true revolutions and more will come. But not every issue is a unique special case, but rather many are new twists on old themes.
Yes, the internet has given us true revolutions and more will come. But not every issue is a unique special case, but rather many are new twists on old themes.
Good point and rundown of the situation but I'd say the expectation of a new approach to law appearing will only be fallacious if we let it be by accepting the way things are going.
Laws on the books tend to be tied very closely with specific implementations.
Yes, the law as it currently exist is based on being able to preserve "differences that don't make a difference". It's developed incrementally, inductively and by analogy. The phenomena of generic information, of information that isn't tied to a physical manifestation, is anathema to the whole English Common Law tradition, the basis of our system of laws. Is a string of bits a song? a device for circumventing security? Hate Speech? Protected Speech? The law as it exists needs to answer this and yet can't answer this because the law needs a context and the free flow of information implies there no set context.
And so the legal system is going to be either be further and further removed from reality or institute an entirely totalitarian system to maintain its expectations.
Because generic information really doesn't consist of a series of "new devices" and "new contexts" but rather is a single, abstract and indivisible process; either every unique string of bits is free or it has an owner - which is it?
Laws on the books tend to be tied very closely with specific implementations.
Yes, the law as it currently exist is based on being able to preserve "differences that don't make a difference". It's developed incrementally, inductively and by analogy. The phenomena of generic information, of information that isn't tied to a physical manifestation, is anathema to the whole English Common Law tradition, the basis of our system of laws. Is a string of bits a song? a device for circumventing security? Hate Speech? Protected Speech? The law as it exists needs to answer this and yet can't answer this because the law needs a context and the free flow of information implies there no set context.
And so the legal system is going to be either be further and further removed from reality or institute an entirely totalitarian system to maintain its expectations.
Because generic information really doesn't consist of a series of "new devices" and "new contexts" but rather is a single, abstract and indivisible process; either every unique string of bits is free or it has an owner - which is it?
You are correct when you say that the internet is uncharted territory, but if you look at things on the internet (protocols like smtp, http and ftp for example) they all are abstract representations of pre-existing analog or organic items that developed countries have been using for decades if not centuries.
smtp is traditional mail. ftp is FedEx or UPS to transfer larger items. http is also like traditional mail or mass mailing catalogs. The lines between these examples are somewhat blurry, but I hope you get the idea.
There is no reason to throw out the kitchen sink and start over because the medium of communication has changed over the past 30 years. Adapting old laws is perfectly reasonable, it just needs to be done by lawmakers that are informed as to how the internet actually works.
smtp is traditional mail. ftp is FedEx or UPS to transfer larger items. http is also like traditional mail or mass mailing catalogs. The lines between these examples are somewhat blurry, but I hope you get the idea.
There is no reason to throw out the kitchen sink and start over because the medium of communication has changed over the past 30 years. Adapting old laws is perfectly reasonable, it just needs to be done by lawmakers that are informed as to how the internet actually works.
Yet sometimes the medium defines the message. Until the 19th century, you would pay to watch a theatrical or listen to live music because it was the only fair price available. When you wanted a picture of yourself, you had to pay Renoir to make an original portrait. The 20th century brought us the selling of copies. That was a weird mixture - you paid for the vinyl disc , or the print poster, but you knew the price was not the price of the material alone. I think the digital world provides so much opportunity to create original content, that we no more need copies. I like how economies arise in digital worlds that are based on original content or services, like online game worlds, virtual goods, software-as-a-service and web site design. I believe slowly but surely we 'll get over the economy of copies. It's like going back to pre-19th century really, but in a good way. Not arguing my case strongly here, it's just a certain point of view (after all it's Saturday)
p.s. i dont really believe SMTP,FTP,or HTTP were based on the real world ontology. they were engineered out of necessity
p.s. i dont really believe SMTP,FTP,or HTTP were based on the real world ontology. they were engineered out of necessity
> Until the 19th century, you would pay to watch a theatrical or listen to live music because it was the only fair price available.
Actually, no. Locals often performed for free. It was part of the whole community thing.
> you wanted a picture of yourself, you had to pay Renoir to make an original portrait.
Or, you did it yourself. Or your a member of your family or a neighbor did it.
Drawing used to done by far more people.
Actually, no. Locals often performed for free. It was part of the whole community thing.
> you wanted a picture of yourself, you had to pay Renoir to make an original portrait.
Or, you did it yourself. Or your a member of your family or a neighbor did it.
Drawing used to done by far more people.
yeah, there's been a huge shift from everybody being a producer to most just consuming art. The minority that still produce probably understand what a loss this is better than most.
what if you wanted to listen to mozart himself or have an original renoir? my point is you couldn't buy a copy
Then you were a snob and you deserved the markup. Just as today if you want your coffee beans personally picked by Howard Schultz it'll cost you more than most people think of as "a reasonable price for coffee".
[deleted]
ok let me rephrase: even if you wanted to buy a reasonable copy of a renoir, the price you paid corresponded to man-hours of labour. It was a compensation for something.
That's why there are so many parallelisms to Gutenberg's revolutionary invention and the modern age, for instance:
http://www.amazon.com/Piracy-Intellectual-Property-Gutenberg...
http://www.amazon.com/Piracy-Intellectual-Property-Gutenberg...
> what if you wanted to listen to mozart himself or have an original renoir?
Then you did as you have to do today - you went to the source.
Thanks to amplification, more people can hear Bruce Springsteen live than could hear Mozart.
> my point is you couldn't buy a copy
That's true, but that's not your original claim or the claim above.
Your original claim was that you had to pay. That claim was wrong.
Then you did as you have to do today - you went to the source.
Thanks to amplification, more people can hear Bruce Springsteen live than could hear Mozart.
> my point is you couldn't buy a copy
That's true, but that's not your original claim or the claim above.
Your original claim was that you had to pay. That claim was wrong.
Uncharted territory? We have been charting this for the past twenty years.
that's the sad part
> When I write a letter to somebody, nobody has the right to intercept the letter in transit, break its seal and examine its contents unless I am under formal, individual and prior suspicion of a specific crime. In that case, law enforcement (and only them) may do this. Of course, I am never under any obligation to help anybody open and interpret my letters. It is perfectly reasonable to demand that this applies online as well.
I would be willing to bet that 90% of the readership of TorrentFreak have run wireshark at one time or another.
I would be willing to bet that 90% of the readership of TorrentFreak have run wireshark at one time or another.
I would argue that unencrypted communication is the equivalent of sending a postcard. There's no envelope or anything protecting the contents, so it's hardly a crime if someone happens to see the contents while it's in transit.
If you don't want someone to see what you wrote, encrypt it. And yes, this will take a massive amount of user reeducation.
If you don't want someone to see what you wrote, encrypt it. And yes, this will take a massive amount of user reeducation.
There is a difference in passively trying to intercept unencrypted communication and accidentally seeing a postcard in transit. It is illegal to look in someone's mailbox and it's illegal to remove contents from someone's mailbox to possibly read mail even without opening it. The points of contact for a postcard are minimal and generally would only be by employees of the postal service. I would argue that snooping on unencrypted communication would still be a crime because the user made a passive decision to do so.
(I'm not preaching what to do or not to do - I'm no angel and have done my share of deeds - but this is to point out what it really comes down to when you compare analog and digital actions...)
(I'm not preaching what to do or not to do - I'm no angel and have done my share of deeds - but this is to point out what it really comes down to when you compare analog and digital actions...)
I would say using someone else's network is like giving them your mail to put in your mailbox 'cause you're lazy. Using an unsecured public wireless connection is like shouting to a friend across the park. The problem really is that people think of a line to the internet as just a line to the internet, no matter where it comes from or who it goes through, not considering that some of their communications are public
Your focus is on public networks though. While the ratio of unsecured private networks are slowly dwindling, there are plenty still out there. It could be argued that it's the owners responsibility to secure the network, just like it's their responsibility to lock their doors at night - but there are plenty of people not tech savvy enough to know how to do this - or to even distinguish that leaving your network open is equivalent to leaving your door unlocked and possibly wide open.
The problem is - are they wrong in assuming that their personal network should not in normal circumstances be invaded? Just because we know there is a risk of someone entering our house far easier if we leave the door open, they should not in normal circumstances be entering without obvious intent to do something, anything. The same could be said for someone going on to an open network. While it's easy enough to join said network to just use free WiFi, one could also be snooping on communication, or other possible actions on the person private network.
My point really comes down to reasonable expectation of privacy (with possible complete ignorance on such matters) from the network owner, and the possible intent of the person on the network. While it might seem like nothing, I think it's an important topic if we are discussing analog laws in a digital world.
The problem is - are they wrong in assuming that their personal network should not in normal circumstances be invaded? Just because we know there is a risk of someone entering our house far easier if we leave the door open, they should not in normal circumstances be entering without obvious intent to do something, anything. The same could be said for someone going on to an open network. While it's easy enough to join said network to just use free WiFi, one could also be snooping on communication, or other possible actions on the person private network.
My point really comes down to reasonable expectation of privacy (with possible complete ignorance on such matters) from the network owner, and the possible intent of the person on the network. While it might seem like nothing, I think it's an important topic if we are discussing analog laws in a digital world.
So? What is the point you are trying to make?
It's a bit like a drug-dealer saying 'why shouldn't I be able to ship drugs drugs through customs? - I know the drugs are illegal, but my crates are supposed to be private anyway.'
customs are in particular established as explicit points where things passing through may legally be inspected.
Drug dealer caught by somebody snooping into his shipments without a warrant has good chances for such an evidence be thrown out of court.
Drug dealer caught by somebody snooping into his shipments without a warrant has good chances for such an evidence be thrown out of court.
Yes I'm entirely aware of that. My point is he's still a drug dealer and his attempt to shift the moral debate to something else is entirely transparent.
The author claims a right he doesn't have (a right to private correspondence). Something I've never seen mentioned anywhere before. I know most war time letters are censored, and I've never seen rights activists even mention (let alone protest) that.
Your ISP analyze packets, sometimes deeply. Google opens your mail to look for spam (does this violate the spammers right to private communication?). Norton opens your email attachments, and it might be mandated by your employer. A post office might scan or open suspicious packages to ensure they are safe for the receiver. These all involve 3rd parties analyzing and modifying messages.
Your ISP analyze packets, sometimes deeply. Google opens your mail to look for spam (does this violate the spammers right to private communication?). Norton opens your email attachments, and it might be mandated by your employer. A post office might scan or open suspicious packages to ensure they are safe for the receiver. These all involve 3rd parties analyzing and modifying messages.
As far as wikipedia can be trusted, there are explicit rigits to privacy & secrecy of correspondence [1] in western countries.
The examples you give fail flat out -- mechanical sorting & filtering of email, without any direct human intervention -- has no way of breaking privacy. No person learns anything private, and nobody will ever get pestered by the spam filters of google or other such.
Also, there's no crates of illegal drugs there being moved around. There is opaque electronic correspondence. Paper correspondence is by default secret, unless interceped by law enforcement officials under court order. No provisions out there for private parties for wildcard checks if their rights are infriged somehow by paper mail -- and you can be sure every now and then somebody slanders someone in paper mail. Rumors and whatnot.
The point of the article is, why are there blatant double standards when it comes to electronic correspondence?
EDIT: also note the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katz_v._United_States
In short, ``[[SCOTUS interpreted the Fourth Amendment]] to count [[also]] immaterial intrusion with technology as a search''.
----
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secrecy_of_correspondence
The examples you give fail flat out -- mechanical sorting & filtering of email, without any direct human intervention -- has no way of breaking privacy. No person learns anything private, and nobody will ever get pestered by the spam filters of google or other such.
Also, there's no crates of illegal drugs there being moved around. There is opaque electronic correspondence. Paper correspondence is by default secret, unless interceped by law enforcement officials under court order. No provisions out there for private parties for wildcard checks if their rights are infriged somehow by paper mail -- and you can be sure every now and then somebody slanders someone in paper mail. Rumors and whatnot.
The point of the article is, why are there blatant double standards when it comes to electronic correspondence?
EDIT: also note the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katz_v._United_States
In short, ``[[SCOTUS interpreted the Fourth Amendment]] to count [[also]] immaterial intrusion with technology as a search''.
----
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secrecy_of_correspondence
The International Declaration of Human Rights establishes secrecy of correspondence as a basic human right (article 12). It is echoed in the constitutions of many countries.
Shallow packet analysis is akin to reading the address of a letter in physical mail. It does not violate the secrecy of the message. When you sign up for an ISP or create a GMail account, you allow the company to inspect your correspondence and they assure you they will keep it secret under the terms of the law. The agreement is binding. You can sue if your communication is arbitrarily violated.
The content of packages might be subject to customs and taxation. Goods are not correspondence (from the p.o.v. of those laws).
Of course, laws are written taking good faith as a premise...
Shallow packet analysis is akin to reading the address of a letter in physical mail. It does not violate the secrecy of the message. When you sign up for an ISP or create a GMail account, you allow the company to inspect your correspondence and they assure you they will keep it secret under the terms of the law. The agreement is binding. You can sue if your communication is arbitrarily violated.
The content of packages might be subject to customs and taxation. Goods are not correspondence (from the p.o.v. of those laws).
Of course, laws are written taking good faith as a premise...
I believe offline laws should not be applicable to online till a credible face recognition software is developed. e.g. http://www.riya.com/
"trying to make digital files uncopyable is like trying to make water not wet." ( http://www.schneier.com/essay-126.html )
And that is what scares the current content industry. And that is why they want such draconian laws applied to the Internet, when such laws, as the author of the subject article accurately points out, would never fly in the non-internet realm.