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>> If I buy a ladder,
>
> If someone has spent some time coming up with a novel design (eg those
> ones that collapse and fold 10 different ways) then you're probably not
> allowed to make copies and sell it. You can claim it's your ladder as
> much as you want, but you don't own the IP for it.
Well, that's the fundamental difference, really.
Designing a car may be difficult, but *building* one is also absurdly
difficult. Almost nobody would bother to buy a BWM, copy its design,
build a hundred of them and give them to all their friends for free. The
materials and equipment required cost a fortune. (Not to mention the
fact that it would be *easier* to design a car from scratch than try to
copy an existing design that you don't have the plans for.)
For "content", the IP *is* the product. Which is a problem, since it's
trivially copyable.
> Exactly, the laws are there to allow people to make investments knowing
> that they will be able to profit from their work. This goes for
> everything from music and art through to designing cars and phones.
> Without such laws it would be a waste of money to try and develop
> something as you'd never be able to get enough money in return.
Indeed. If you sit down and watch something like the making of Pirates
of the Caribbean, you start to realise _why_ it cost 140 *million* USD
to make it. No sane person is going to spend that kind of money unless
they're expecting to make some kind of a return on that investment.
It used to be that music, video and so forth were all analogue, and it
was difficult to make decent quality copies, and impractical to
distribute them. Oh, if there was a profit in it, somebody would have
done it, which is why it was illegal.
Today, if you wanted to, you could film your cat sleeping or something,
and have it distributed to a thousand million viewers within minutes. It
costs virtually nothing.
Hence, we arrive at the fundamental problem: It is trivially easy to
copy and distribute digital data. However, some of this digital data is
copyrighted work, who's creators (quite reasonably) expect you to pay
for it. Others simply reason "why pay if I can get it for free?"
But then of course, the publishers think "OK, well if we embed this
computer program, we can stop people copying it". (Actually no, no you
cannot. But the CEO probably isn't smart enough to comprehend this.) And
then /some/ of them start thinking "hey, instead of just stopping people
doing illegal stuff, we could stop them doing legal stuff too, and
charge them money for the privilege that used to be free".
(And then of course the other side reacts, and they break the DRM, and
the publishers come up with new, more inflexible DRM, and the whole
thing spirals out of control...)
I have no problem with content creators expecting a return on their
investment. But I object to DRM, on a number of grounds. (Point #1 being
"it doesn't work".) I have literally no idea what the solution is; the
only workable one I can think of is "don't bother producing new
content", but I *really* hope that's not the solution that everybody
settles on... (!)
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> Well, that's the fundamental difference, really.
>
> Designing a car may be difficult, but *building* one is also absurdly
> difficult.
Not really, building one just needs unskilled workers and tooling for
the parts. The tooling you can just ask a toolmaker to copy from
existing parts. The actual difficult bit is knowing what shape to make
everything and what material to make it from. If you have an existing
design you can just use that.
> Almost nobody would bother to buy a BWM, copy its design,
> build a hundred of them and give them to all their friends for free.
Actually yes companies do exactly this (well not give away for free, but
sell for cheaper as they don't need to pay so much design costs):
http://www.egmcartech.com/2007/08/27/bmw-threatens-action-against-chinese-copy-of-x5/
> For "content", the IP *is* the product. Which is a problem, since it's
> trivially copyable.
Indeed, it's clearly much easier and cheaper to copy an mp3 than a car,
but the principle is the same.
> I have no problem with content creators expecting a return on their
> investment. But I object to DRM, on a number of grounds. (Point #1 being
> "it doesn't work".)
You mean everyone knows how to bypass DRM? You mean none of the people
who pay for content today wouldn't be tempted to copy if there was no
DRM to bypass?
> I have literally no idea what the solution is; the
> only workable one I can think of is "don't bother producing new
> content", but I *really* hope that's not the solution that everybody
> settles on... (!)
Given that many companies still make a lot of money from digital
content, the problem doesn't appear to be as bad as you make out
(certainly no need to stop making new content yet!).
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On 21/01/2011 12:16 PM, scott wrote:
>> Almost nobody would bother to buy a BWM, copy its design,
>> build a hundred of them and give them to all their friends for free.
>
> Actually yes companies do exactly this (well not give away for free, but
> sell for cheaper as they don't need to pay so much design costs):
>
>
http://www.egmcartech.com/2007/08/27/bmw-threatens-action-against-chinese-copy-of-x5/
Yes, some *companies* do this. And there are laws to prevent it. What
I'm saying is that some random dude on the street isn't going to do
this. It's far too expensive, for a start.
>> For "content", the IP *is* the product. Which is a problem, since it's
>> trivially copyable.
>
> Indeed, it's clearly much easier and cheaper to copy an mp3 than a car,
> but the principle is the same.
Sure, the *principle* is the same. You shouldn't be making illegal
copies of stuff. I'm pointing out that the *practise* is different. It's
so hard to copy a car that very few do so. It's so trivially easy to
copy digital data that potentially a vast number of people might well do
this.
>> I have no problem with content creators expecting a return on their
>> investment. But I object to DRM, on a number of grounds. (Point #1 being
>> "it doesn't work".)
>
> You mean everyone knows how to bypass DRM?
No. I mean that it only takes one single person to work out how to
defeat DRM (which will happen with probability 1), and your system is
broken. You no longer have control over what people do with your data.
(More to the point, with current DRM systems, it's actually *easier* to
use the cracked content than the genuine article. Incentive to pay, much?)
>> I have literally no idea what the solution is; the
>> only workable one I can think of is "don't bother producing new
>> content", but I *really* hope that's not the solution that everybody
>> settles on... (!)
>
> Given that many companies still make a lot of money from digital
> content, the problem doesn't appear to be as bad as you make out
> (certainly no need to stop making new content yet!).
Emphasis "yet"...
I don't think we'll ever see cinema die. (Could *you* afford a screen
that big? And a sound system that powerful?) There's something to be
said for seeing a film projected onto a screen the size of a small
housing estate. "Home cinema" isn't.
Likewise, I'm sure they'll always be a market for live performance.
As for making money out of digital content... well, I *hope* it
continues to be viable, but I'm not optimistic unless a "solution" can
be arrived at. DRM is not the solution; DRM is the problem.
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> Yes, some *companies* do this. And there are laws to prevent it. What
> I'm saying is that some random dude on the street isn't going to do
> this. It's far too expensive, for a start.
OK I understand your point.
> No. I mean that it only takes one single person to work out how to
> defeat DRM (which will happen with probability 1), and your system is
> broken. You no longer have control over what people do with your data.
But the DRM is not useless in that situation, as not everyone knows how
to find illegal copies.
> (More to the point, with current DRM systems, it's actually *easier* to
> use the cracked content than the genuine article. Incentive to pay, much?)
A good example is the adverts before a film on a DVD that you are forced
to watch. A cracked copy will usually cut out the adverts, and some
people would say it is doing no harm by doing that themselves for their
own personal use. But, the fact that the adverts cannot be skipped is
actually creating income for the publisher, without them they'd need to
charge more for the DVD in the first place.
> Emphasis "yet"...
I don't see the channels used for pirate content becoming any more
mainstream, you still need to be "in the know" to find where to get such
stuff, and there's always the risk you'll get caught and sent a fine
and/or blocked by your ISP. And the more popular such places become,
the more likely they are to get shut down.
> As for making money out of digital content... well, I *hope* it
> continues to be viable, but I'm not optimistic unless a "solution" can
> be arrived at.
As of today DRM is apparently the best solution.
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Invisible wrote:
> On 20/01/2011 08:55 PM, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>
>> Yet, even in that case, you could, for legit use, photocopy pages out of
>> a book, for a classroom, or to show someone, etc., as long as you don't
>> *sell* the book, or its pages, to someone else. Not so with DRMed stuff.
>
> I'm not sure about the USA,
It's the same in the USA, modulo Fair Use. E.g., you could copy a paragraph
out of a novel to discuss certain words in it, but you couldn't copy an
entire scholarly article to give it out.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Serving Suggestion:
"Don't serve this any more. It's awful."
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scott wrote:
> Surely they are not all wrong?
Yet, many people who write books or play music for free and then sell copies
later manage to sell lots of copies. There was even a very popular group
(whose name I forget) that decided to do an entire professional-quality
album and release it online with "pay what you think it's worth", and wound
up making 10x as much money as they would have had they given it to a
publisher, since most direct downloaders wound up giving them something like
90% of the price they would have paid for it on CD.
Then there's "Machine of Death", a book that you could get online for free
or buy in print from Amazon. I got it online free, and bought copies for
people who I know don't have an e-reader.
The Harry Potter DVD was released with no macrovision protection, saving the
cost of the license of that and apparently not harming sales noticeably.
So the model does work. How well and for how many is another question.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Serving Suggestion:
"Don't serve this any more. It's awful."
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On 21-1-2011 10:00, Invisible wrote:
> On 20/01/2011 08:55 PM, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>
>> Yet, even in that case, you could, for legit use, photocopy pages out of
>> a book, for a classroom, or to show someone, etc., as long as you don't
>> *sell* the book, or its pages, to someone else. Not so with DRMed stuff.
>
> I'm not sure about the USA, but in the UK you can't photocopy stuff for
> use in the classroom without the copyright holder's permission. (Wanna
> guess why school materials cost so much?)
Here too. A friend of mine ended up having to prove that he did certain
drawings himself. Otherwise the default assumption was that they were
stolen. And no, they didn't need to show wherefrom. This was part of a
campus agreement where they needed to pay a certain amount per image per
reader to the general copyrightholders agency.
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Invisible wrote:
>> Surely they are not all wrong?
> That's a rather weak argument, isn't it?
That would be this one:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populum
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Serving Suggestion:
"Don't serve this any more. It's awful."
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scott wrote:
> Well they surely have a lot more information than most of us do on the
> subject,
That would be "argument from authority."
> seems unlikely they took the decision to invest in and use DRM without
> some thought.
You put a lot of faith in those sorts of decisions, don't you? :-)
>> Renting something is a little different to *buying* it.
>
> How about if I sell you the right to watch my film 10 times, is that
> renting or buying?
Renting.
> How about 100 times, 1000 times, for 5 years, only
> through a specific media player (eg your TV set-top box)?
Renting.
>> If I buy a ladder,
>
> If someone has spent some time coming up with a novel design (eg those
> ones that collapse and fold 10 different ways) then you're probably not
> allowed to make copies and sell it. You can claim it's your ladder as
> much as you want, but you don't own the IP for it.
I don't think folks are talking about the IP. I can buy a DVD then rent it
to the public legally. Copyright only controls copying, at least in the USA.
> Without such laws it would be a waste of money to try and develop
> something as you'd never be able to get enough money in return.
Maybe, maybe not.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Serving Suggestion:
"Don't serve this any more. It's awful."
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Invisible wrote:
> Oh, if there was a profit in it, somebody would have
> done it, which is why it was illegal.
And that's why public performance is also regulated. :-)
> Hence, we arrive at the fundamental problem: It is trivially easy to
> copy and distribute digital data. However, some of this digital data is
> copyrighted work, who's creators (quite reasonably) expect you to pay
> for it. Others simply reason "why pay if I can get it for free?"
Basically, the music and film industry depends on it being possible to make
copies but not cheap to make copies.
There was no RIAA before there were records. Copyrights on books were
senseless before the invention of the printing press. Now that a
personal-scale printing press costs less than 10 books, and making a copy of
a recording no longer requires an entire factory, the publishing industry
has to deal with that.
> But then of course, the publishers think "OK, well if we embed this
> computer program, we can stop people copying it". (Actually no, no you
> cannot. But the CEO probably isn't smart enough to comprehend this.)
Even if he is, the shareholders aren't. It's like the TSA - security theater.
> I have no problem with content creators expecting a return on their
> investment. But I object to DRM, on a number of grounds. (Point #1 being
> "it doesn't work".)
The real reason it doesn't work is that you only have to break it once. Once
someone takes the copy protection off, they can distribute the broken
version. So the DRM has to keep out the *smartest* attackers, not just the
average attackers.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Serving Suggestion:
"Don't serve this any more. It's awful."
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