[Cdn-DMCA] Rights Management Information - some thoughts.

[farrellj]

On Fri, 5 Apr 2002, Russell McOrmond wrote:

>
> On Thu, 4 Apr 2002, farrellj wrote:
>
> > This is one of the fears that many writers I know have. They fear that
> > inferior writing will make it's way around the net, wrongly attributed
> > to them, and damage their careers.
>
>   I don't believe this has anything to do with copyright, beyond defining
> moral rights. This would more properly be left to tort and related laws.

	True, but we have to answer these people telling them that there are
already solutions. To me, that is the heart of the problem with the
DMCA...there already exists rules and lawsd that cover copyright, and they
work. The DMCA is a singularity of copyright law, and needs to be
eliminated.

>   It especially has nothing to do with digital copyright, other than the
> fact that increases in ICT have allowed for more communication.
>
>   I don't suspect these same writers oppose literacy being taught in the
> schools, the basic foundation of ones ability to modify existing works ;-)

	No, just the redistribution of them under their name.

> > 	These should be covered by a "fair use" part of the laws.
>
>   The phrase *should be* is the focus of most of these discussions.  The
> industry has been trying to attack fair dealings in many countries.
>
>   TPM and RMI are direct attacks on "fair dealings" and legal Private
> Copying.

	I used to work for TouchTunes in Montreal, one of the companies
behind SDMI...I looked at the information, and I knew it wasn't going to
work! But we need a system for compensating artists and other contributers
to the work (ie, cover art, engineer, producer).

> > >   Simply put, any system which gives legal protection in copyright (rather
> > > than in contract law) for RMI such as "this file may be played 3 times" or
> > > "this file may be played until September 9", turns Open Source software
> > > and platforms into an alleged 'circumvention device'.
> >
> > 	You are attacking the wrong end of things. What is needed is a way
> > to make sure that the artists and people in the industry get a fair payback
> > for their art.
>
>   I only care about creators and citizens, not publishers.  We have
> already discussed quite a number of alternative business models that do
> not rely on excessive monopoly privileges that harm fair dealings and
> private copying.

	When I say people in the industry, I mean people like cover/graphic
artists, engineers, producers, etc. Not Record executives, A&R, Booking
agents, etc.

>   I also don't buy the rhetoric that private copying is harm to the
> artists.  I believe it is advertising, and thus obviously do not support
> laws that treat this advertising as a crime.

	As I said, to me it is like the Mandelbrot fractal...if you cover
everything but the edges, you cover most of the problem. It's that last 1 %
at the boarders that you shouldn't worry about, and that is the public. Mass
copying by criminal and the industry itself (the so call "cleans") probably
make up about 99% of all unpaidfor copies. Many of these appear in record
stores, and we are none the wiser.

> > >   As I have said earlier, the harm to the music industry is theoretical
> > > (based on bad assumptions relating to private copying) while the harm to
> > > the Open Source movement is REAL.
> >
> > 	True, but attacking the symptoms does not solve the cause. And that
> > is the music industry waited too long to get digital and on the Internet.
>
>
>   I don't agree that this is the cause.  There are totally different
> business models that need to be adopted to make sense in the new
> communications/information/etc economy that the Internet can facilitate. I
> don't believe the old top-heavy industries (music, movie, software, etc)
> are really capable of making that transition.

	That is what I am trying to say...their business model no longer
works, and they either need to change it, or go out of business.

>   I also don't believe that recognizing the problems with the old industry
> really helps us in our current short-term goals which is to stop the
> criminalization of specific forms of communication.

	It is important, since all of this legistlation is an attempt to get
handouts from the government to prop-up their failing businesses.

> > 	There must be a "fair use" clause, and the public should not be
> > assumed guilty, then penalizing everyone. The industry screwed up, and the
> > government should not be there to give them huge handouts based upon assumed
> > guilt and said penalties. We are supposed to be a market economy here, and
> > if they cannot make money in their current business model, they they should
> > either change it, or go out of business.
>
>
>   I do no feel that "The Government" (the ministers) are yet understanding
> either your (the industry screwed up) or my (the industry is an
> increasingly redundant "hired help") viewpoint on this.

	I am not sure that both concepts are not compatible with each other.
As a musican, engineer and producer, I know that I can make money without a
record company...take a look at Nash the Slash, or Loreena McKennitt. Both
have made their way in the industry without a record company (other than
their own), and McKennitt only uses WEA as a distributer.  And distribution
is the *only* thing that record companies are doing now that is hard for an
indivigual artist to do.

ttyl
     Farrell J. McGovern

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