5 ms·

Crazy how much Walt Disney's lobbying so many years ago had such an impact and irreparable damage to digital content access, as well as, all the TPM nonsense th

Crazy how much Walt Disney's lobbying so many years ago had such an impact and irreparable damage to digital content access, as well as, all the TPM nonsense that came after. We simply normalized users not owning content because of him. A 25 year window should be more than appropriate for copyright protection.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
portaouflop 2y ago
I said it a billion times, Copyright as it exists now is broken, does not serve its purpose and needs urgent reform
- Cumpiler69 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - eesmith 2y ago
    You must realize that makes no sense, right? Set aside that none of the school shootings has changed national gun policy ... Set aside that it's unlikely the US health insurance system is unlikely to change, especially given the majority party's calls to tear down "Obamacare" and privatize more ... There is no head, not even a symbolic one, for the current IP/copyright system. DRM is in every fucking thing these days because many businesses profit by protecting their business model via government-granted IP monopoly. General Jackson may have slayed the Many Headed Monster, but at least you could count the heads. When 10,000+ organizations benefit from the IP/copyright system, the hydra heads are too many for one to make a difference.
    - Cumpiler69 2y ago
      >DRM is in every fucking thing these days because many businesses profit by protecting their business model via government-granted IP monopoly. I never argued for tearing down the IP/DRM system. I'm advocating for better restricting it to shorter periods so that the initial IP holders can profit from it for a while but not virtually indefinitely.
      - eesmith 2y ago
        I didn't mean to imply that you did. That said, I would tear down DRM. There's no reason for HP to profit by keeping you from using an alternative ink supplier, not even for one second.
        Cumpiler69 2y ago
        > There's no reason for HP to profit by keeping you from using an alternative ink supplier, not even for one second. Wait till you hear what car companies have in mind.
        eesmith 2y ago
        If I listed all the companies I've heard about, I would still be writing.
    - vouaobrasil 2y ago
      > Set aside that none of the school shootings has changed national gun policy ... Because they weren't strategically targeting anything... > Set aside that it's unlikely the US health insurance system is unlikely to change, especially given the majority party's calls to tear down "Obamacare" and privatize more ... That's up for debate since the event happened so recently.
      - eesmith 2y ago
        > Because they weren't strategically targeting anything... There is a long history of strategically targeted killings in the US not doing anything, so you need more qualifiers than that. Kaczynski targeted "people he believed to be advancing modern technology and the destruction of the natural environment." (quoting Wikipedia). Did that change anything? The 1919 United States anarchist bombings targeted (if I interpret "Plain Words" correctly from the Wikipedia page) the powerful who started the class war. That didn't seem effective either. > That's up for debate That's kinda my point. You cannot say this is a "moment" and imply it will change anything when (so far) nothing has changed. What do you think the change might be? I watched Michael Moore's "Sicko" last night, after he released it for free. I found it far more powerful in convincing me the US healthcare and childcare system is totally fucked up. Why didn't we have a Sicko moment when it was released, and what's changed?
        Cumpiler69 2y ago
        >Kaczynski targeted "people he believed to be advancing modern technology and the destruction of the natural environment." (quoting Wikipedia). Did that change anything? The problem with that argument is that Kaczynski targeted random innocent people who had nothing to do with the faults in the system, while Luigi targeted one of the heads(pun not intended) directly responsible for the faults with the system, which is why a lot of the people support his actions.
        vouaobrasil 2y ago
        Actually, Kaczynski did attempt to target those responsible for failings of the system, including a geneticist, computer store owners, etc. The reason why Kaczynski didn't have support is because he believed that all of advanced technology was a problem and of course he targeted "low-level" people compared to CEOs, and most people don't agree with his technology thesis anyway, whereas most people disagree that healthcare in the US is messed up.
  - nemo44x 2y ago
    A person should be murdered because you can’t use someone’s creative work for 100 years?
    - Cumpiler69 2y ago
      A "Luigi moment" to me doesn't mean "go off a CEO", but a event large enough that catches the media's and people's attention on the matter.
      - School-Cotton 2y ago
        That’s a terrible term for it, then, because everyone else will assume you mean killing someone.
        Cumpiler69 2y ago
        How would you call it instead?
      - nemo44x 2y ago
        So you want to live in a world where someone thinks they can get what they want by creating an incident serious and dramatic enough to garner media attention and that will wake people up? That’s not how you get things done. In fact I’d say it’s probably counter productive. How about you work to persuade people why your opinion of copyright law is better than the status quo? Put the work in, attract followers and funding, get big enough so your voice has real political and democratic power. This is how you affect change. But it takes work. Making a scene might feel good and is easy but don’t have any meaningful effect.
- khafra 2y ago
  See discussion at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42319461 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42319461
BoxOfRain 2y ago
I completely agree, I'd fully support copyright being reduced to 25-30 years. The whole point of copyright is to grant an initial monopoly to a creator so they can benefit from their work, promoting the viability of further creative works. It's supposed to be a positive for the ecosystem as well as just the individual creator but I'd argue absurdly lengthy copyright terms, the fact IP trolls are a viable business model, and the fact large corporations end up dominating the creative space are all ways copyright as it stands negatively effects the overall creative ecosystem. 30 years or about that would permit the creator to benefit exclusively from the original release and a nostalgia cycle, but then it'd be fair game for everyone else to build on which is how culture has always worked. I think that arrangement would be far healthier and promote more creativity.
Mindwipe 2y ago
> Crazy how much Walt Disney's lobbying so many years ago had such an impact and irreparable damage to digital content access, as well as, all the TPM nonsense that came after. This isn't true, but it won't stop people claiming otherwise on HN. (The main reason the US extended copyright protection is because it had committed to not be out of line with the EU terms in international treaties, and the EU reached their number by harmonising to the longest amongst the member states which was Germany, and the main reason German copyright is so long is due to their domestic publishing and newspaper industries).
- ben_w 2y ago
  > and the main reason German copyright is so long is due to their domestic publishing and newspaper industries This is surprising to me. Not domestic publishing (I understand how that could have happened) but why would newspapers even care about protecting what they wrote about 30 years ago — how are they expecting to monetise today on how they reported in 1994 on such things such as the United Nations accepting Palau as a new member, or the Swiss Federal Assembly's approval of the Marrakesh agreement, or whoever won whichever sports events? Today's headlines are tomorrow's fish and chips wrappers, as the British say.
  - Mindwipe 2y ago
    I mean the main reason is that (at least then, but somewhat so today) the largest newspaper publishers in Germany and their biggest literature publishers were the same people, honestly. But it meant that the press were very much on side. They probably also felt that their archives were more valuable pre-internet. Germany also just has a tradition of very strong authors rights.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

portaouflop 2y ago

I said it a billion times, Copyright as it exists now is broken, does not serve its purpose and needs urgent reform

Cumpiler69 2y ago
[flagged]
- eesmith 2y ago
  You must realize that makes no sense, right? Set aside that none of the school shootings has changed national gun policy ... Set aside that it's unlikely the US health insurance system is unlikely to change, especially given the majority party's calls to tear down "Obamacare" and privatize more ... There is no head, not even a symbolic one, for the current IP/copyright system. DRM is in every fucking thing these days because many businesses profit by protecting their business model via government-granted IP monopoly. General Jackson may have slayed the Many Headed Monster, but at least you could count the heads. When 10,000+ organizations benefit from the IP/copyright system, the hydra heads are too many for one to make a difference.
  - Cumpiler69 2y ago
    >DRM is in every fucking thing these days because many businesses profit by protecting their business model via government-granted IP monopoly. I never argued for tearing down the IP/DRM system. I'm advocating for better restricting it to shorter periods so that the initial IP holders can profit from it for a while but not virtually indefinitely.
    - eesmith 2y ago
      I didn't mean to imply that you did. That said, I would tear down DRM. There's no reason for HP to profit by keeping you from using an alternative ink supplier, not even for one second.
      - Cumpiler69 2y ago
        > There's no reason for HP to profit by keeping you from using an alternative ink supplier, not even for one second. Wait till you hear what car companies have in mind.
        eesmith 2y ago
        If I listed all the companies I've heard about, I would still be writing.
  - vouaobrasil 2y ago
    > Set aside that none of the school shootings has changed national gun policy ... Because they weren't strategically targeting anything... > Set aside that it's unlikely the US health insurance system is unlikely to change, especially given the majority party's calls to tear down "Obamacare" and privatize more ... That's up for debate since the event happened so recently.
    - eesmith 2y ago
      > Because they weren't strategically targeting anything... There is a long history of strategically targeted killings in the US not doing anything, so you need more qualifiers than that. Kaczynski targeted "people he believed to be advancing modern technology and the destruction of the natural environment." (quoting Wikipedia). Did that change anything? The 1919 United States anarchist bombings targeted (if I interpret "Plain Words" correctly from the Wikipedia page) the powerful who started the class war. That didn't seem effective either. > That's up for debate That's kinda my point. You cannot say this is a "moment" and imply it will change anything when (so far) nothing has changed. What do you think the change might be? I watched Michael Moore's "Sicko" last night, after he released it for free. I found it far more powerful in convincing me the US healthcare and childcare system is totally fucked up. Why didn't we have a Sicko moment when it was released, and what's changed?
      - Cumpiler69 2y ago
        >Kaczynski targeted "people he believed to be advancing modern technology and the destruction of the natural environment." (quoting Wikipedia). Did that change anything? The problem with that argument is that Kaczynski targeted random innocent people who had nothing to do with the faults in the system, while Luigi targeted one of the heads(pun not intended) directly responsible for the faults with the system, which is why a lot of the people support his actions.
        vouaobrasil 2y ago
        Actually, Kaczynski did attempt to target those responsible for failings of the system, including a geneticist, computer store owners, etc. The reason why Kaczynski didn't have support is because he believed that all of advanced technology was a problem and of course he targeted "low-level" people compared to CEOs, and most people don't agree with his technology thesis anyway, whereas most people disagree that healthcare in the US is messed up.
- nemo44x 2y ago
  A person should be murdered because you can’t use someone’s creative work for 100 years?
  - Cumpiler69 2y ago
    A "Luigi moment" to me doesn't mean "go off a CEO", but a event large enough that catches the media's and people's attention on the matter.
    - School-Cotton 2y ago
      That’s a terrible term for it, then, because everyone else will assume you mean killing someone.
      - Cumpiler69 2y ago
        How would you call it instead?
    - nemo44x 2y ago
      So you want to live in a world where someone thinks they can get what they want by creating an incident serious and dramatic enough to garner media attention and that will wake people up? That’s not how you get things done. In fact I’d say it’s probably counter productive. How about you work to persuade people why your opinion of copyright law is better than the status quo? Put the work in, attract followers and funding, get big enough so your voice has real political and democratic power. This is how you affect change. But it takes work. Making a scene might feel good and is easy but don’t have any meaningful effect.
khafra 2y ago
See discussion at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42319461 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42319461

BoxOfRain 2y ago

I completely agree, I'd fully support copyright being reduced to 25-30 years. The whole point of copyright is to grant an initial monopoly to a creator so they can benefit from their work, promoting the viability of further creative works. It's supposed to be a positive for the ecosystem as well as just the individual creator but I'd argue absurdly lengthy copyright terms, the fact IP trolls are a viable business model, and the fact large corporations end up dominating the creative space are all ways copyright as it stands negatively effects the overall creative ecosystem. 30 years or about that would permit the creator to benefit exclusively from the original release and a nostalgia cycle, but then it'd be fair game for everyone else to build on which is how culture has always worked. I think that arrangement would be far healthier and promote more creativity.

Mindwipe 2y ago

> Crazy how much Walt Disney's lobbying so many years ago had such an impact and irreparable damage to digital content access, as well as, all the TPM nonsense that came after. This isn't true, but it won't stop people claiming otherwise on HN. (The main reason the US extended copyright protection is because it had committed to not be out of line with the EU terms in international treaties, and the EU reached their number by harmonising to the longest amongst the member states which was Germany, and the main reason German copyright is so long is due to their domestic publishing and newspaper industries).

ben_w 2y ago
> and the main reason German copyright is so long is due to their domestic publishing and newspaper industries This is surprising to me. Not domestic publishing (I understand how that could have happened) but why would newspapers even care about protecting what they wrote about 30 years ago — how are they expecting to monetise today on how they reported in 1994 on such things such as the United Nations accepting Palau as a new member, or the Swiss Federal Assembly's approval of the Marrakesh agreement, or whoever won whichever sports events? Today's headlines are tomorrow's fish and chips wrappers, as the British say.
- Mindwipe 2y ago
  I mean the main reason is that (at least then, but somewhat so today) the largest newspaper publishers in Germany and their biggest literature publishers were the same people, honestly. But it meant that the press were very much on side. They probably also felt that their archives were more valuable pre-internet. Germany also just has a tradition of very strong authors rights.