“Artists need that crutch to survive”

Lies. Art (and artists) had existed for thousands of years before copyright was invented.

“copyright laws need to be changed to support the musician and consumer”

It’s obvious that you’re not a lawyer. Any kind of private property protecting legislation always supports rich people and large companies at the expense of everybody else. If today oxygen could be claimed as private property – in a week you’d have to pay for your right to breathe.

Artists need that crutch to survive, without copyright they would make very little money, as their intelectual proporty is now all public domain, and if people listened to a song, they might not even know who put so much hard work into creating the album.

Copyright is important, I do not support the large record labels and that group taking all the musician’s money either. Thats why I believe that copyright laws need to be changed to support the musician and consumer, rather than just rich people.

But, sadly, it seems that most people who are against the large record lables, are also anti-copyright, and believe that artists shouldn’t make any money from their work.

please read “The Surprising History of Copyright and The Promise of a Post-Copyright World”
and the rest of the website
http://questioncopyright.org/promise

Q1 – It would be the competition. If one record company could do that, so could any other company or individual. This would result in competition and that has always worked in the peoples advantage rather than big corporates.

Q2 – In the “ideal world” Microsoft’s software wouldn’t be proprietary any more AND / OR it would improve the software for the users advantage AND / OR other companies could do the same and create more competition. All to the peoples advantage.

Q3 – It’s the copyright law that gives them the “unrivaled power” in the first place. Without their monopoly, they would have to be competitive, just as the rest of the world.

Now, which side are you on?

So in the copyright-less world, what stops a record label from grabbing all the indie music it wants, selling it, and keeping all the profits?

What stops Microsoft from taking code from free software projects and incorporating it into its own proprietary software?

In short, what stops any large corporation, with its unrivaled power in the marketplace, from making money off the works of others without permission, attribution or compensation?

These are honest questions. While I agree with most of what you say about copyright, I am not convinced that abolishing it entirely is the right thing to do. If someone can provide satisfactory answers to those questions, my mind might change.

the attitude against copyright is awful because copyright is awful.

stop and think about all the lives that have been or could be damaged or destroyed due to copyright for sharing information and how society would benefit from the free flow of information if copyright was abolished.

having the reputation for sueing people who infringe on your copyright by sharing information will make you very unpopular.

society has a choice to make because copyright is a totally man-made and artificial and unfair law which harms society.

in your small guy and producer example copyright is not needed. the best advice to protect the small guy against a producer fraudulently using the small guys
work of authorship is for the small guy to be sure of the producers reputation. a good producer will not risk their reputation by fraudulently using the small guys work of authorship. also it is a whole lot more trouble to exclude the small guy rather than work with the small guy as needed during production.

“Without copyright a guy writes a script shows it to a producer, the producers takes it to a photo copier and then tells the guy to piss off.”
Not true. Without copyright there’s no producer. There’s just a group of creative people who make movies and a scriptwriter is a natural part of it.

“With it, the small guy gets paid for his work”
O’rly?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007%E2%80%932008_Writers_Guild_of_America_strike

Why, why are people so ignorant…

So much news lately….

A bank here has copyrighted the color blue. At the bottom of every ad and bank statements it says

“The xxx symbol and the color blue is a trademark of bank xxx”

No kidding. It’s just crazy.

If you don’t want to profit from what you create, good for you. Use copyleft or the public domain. But I don’t think you should be able to tell others what they can and can’t do with what they create. If they want to make money off it, they can.

What we’re saying is, who should have more control over somebody’s purchased product – the buyer or the seller?

The artist can do whatever they want with what they create – so long as it’s still in their possession, and it’s still their property.

What the “pirates” are saying is, the artists, once they’ve sold their product, have no control over what happens after the product is sold. They got paid, they gave away their product, end of story. They shouldn’t have the right to magically take away the song from your audio device, is what the pirates are saying, and what the copyright holders are doing now (with a little sth. called DRM).

if copyright was abolished then the internet would become a vast source of information for everyone to access and to use and to benefit from as it should be in a free society.

the concept of copyright is a bad thing because copyright law restricts and controls information and entitles one to unjust legal damages for others distribution, copying or useage of information.

copyright results in the enslavement of ideas and unleashes the forces of tyranny to enforce itself.

Joel Tenebaum and Jammie Thomas are two individuals who were accused of piracy by the music industry,fought their way through court, and ultimately lost. both face substantial judgments of $675,000 and $1.92 million dollars each.

most all computer users have infringed copyright. the punishment for copyright infringement is cruel and arbitrary for who is punished and the severity of the punishment.

noone should accept a non-free society where information is restricted and controlled by copyright law. copyright is for repressive regimes.

artists are everywhere and it’s a ubiquitous role in our culture now. you can’t stop them from creating, and the tools for being an artist and for widely distributing works are plentiful and empowering.

copyright will become obsolete as more authors and artists make their
information freely available on the internet as an advertisement for the sale of a packaging(physical object) or service(presentation or website or concert) which embodies the information. with millions of creative works being published
every single day, modern musicians or authors should fear obscurity far more than piracy.

the monopolists of information will not be able to compete with the free flow of information and will eventually fail.

noone owns information so anyone including big content should be able to access and use all information and benefit from the free flow of information.

the prevailing view in France, Professor Pollaud-Dulian said, remains that existing copyright law should not be overhauled simply because new customs and practices, however widespread, do not fit. modifications to existing copyright
law are unlikely to occur. it is a much stronger argument that copyright is to be abolished because all information is for everyone to access and to use and to benefit from as it should be in a free society.

treating noncommercial and commercial information usage differently is inconsistent and weakens the argument that all information is for everyone to
access and to use and to benefit from in a free society.

“The idea behind copyright is that if you as a creator have some guarantees of recouping your investment in your work”
Which means it’s a guaranteed way to make money – for industries.
Q.E.D.

“art created solely for profit will lack the spirit”
That’s an awfully mild choice of words. In fact, such it’s nothing less than disruptive. It undermines the very principles of creative culture, established thousands of years ago.

“you’re leaving out a tremendous amount of “middling” content”
I don’t care as long as it’s free as it should be.

“I don’t think you should be able to tell others what they can and can’t do with what they create. If they want to make money off it, they can.”
Of course. Which means they’re free to TRY. But without unfair protections (copyright). Just like everyone else in our cruel world.

“Which is pretty much how copyright works now. Nobody is legally obligated to buy a creative work. If people like it, they buy it.”
Of course. Now just let’s abolish copyright and people will still pay for what they like. Nothing will prevent them from doing so.

“if you’re guaranteed to make money off it, it will suck?”
Of course. If you’re guaranted to make money your production will ALWAYS suck. Because when business is guaranteed to make profit it has no motivation to make anything good.

“It must therefore be true as well that if it’s nonprofit, it’s good.”
Why so? You simply fail at logic. Just because some crappy artists provide their works for free, doesn’t mean that those who work for big enterprises create something better.

“The point is that whether something is “crap” is a subjective thing that is best left to the individual to decide”
That’s what I mean. Just abolish the unfair protections and let individual decide.

People haven’t been profiting from fonts since 1992.
Maybe you should wake up and realize that it’s 2010.
Microsoft already bought out 93% of the current copyright fonts anyways, so what makes the next person’s font stand out differently that would make business’s shell out cash for it?

Oh snap, someone just used a font I made one day in MSpaint that looked similar to the letter (L)
Time to call my lawyers and start suing people for the hell of it!

Right……..
The anti-piracy groups and the people that stand up for them are starting to look like Jurassic Jack-asses.

“First of all art isn’t and will never be, in the foreseeable future, a guaranteed way to make money.”
Oh, but it IS. Not for individuals, but for companies. Or are you trying to tell me that show business doesn’t exist or is starving? ;-)

“In fact the majority of artists lose money.”
Copyright isn’t about protecting artists. It’s about protecting industries.

“But in a capitalist society…”
Are you kidding? In capitalist society the strongests should survive and they should survive on THEIR OWN. Copyright is crutches. It supports oligarchic society and it grants unfair advantages to industries vs. individuals.

“You think that only “quality” works of art should result in compensation… That is very subjective, and I don’t even know what would be an acceptable way of judging weather it is “quality” or not…”
And that’s why copyright must be abolished. Let people, not advertisement, decide what should be rewarded.

“You really think that there is no risk in art??”
For media enterprises and software companies? No, currently there’s no risk for them. They make money out of thin air and they are protected by copyright. It’s much like selling heroin and having government subsidies at the same time.

!!! O W N E D !!!

@ anti-frenchies, don’t laugh too much, because after us, Hadopi will come to you. This is very inspiring for Obama… I think you know that, right ?
We are the last hope of man kind… this is a war, and we have to resist until 2012 (no, not the end of the world, but the next elections in France) but Hadopi will start in few months.

French people are very active and seed a lot… But they start to leave public trackers, and this is bad for everyone.