Should copyright laws be abolished?

[Phony Moderate]

I'd be a hypocrite if i said no, since i download a lot of stuff using uTorrent.

[dead0man]

I'm a hypocrite.  Copyright laws should be kept AND I download sh**t all the time (although nowhere near as much as I did, say, 10 years ago).

[Earth]

No, not quite. It needs a serious change, though. The biggest oversight with CC licenses is that it's too easy for a work to be used for commercial purposes. A simple credit suffices, and that's bullsh**t.

Our copyright scheme is too easily abused by the copyright holder. I download all the time, but we, as a whole, need the ability to limit the use of a work, while letting it be freely disseminated.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     Yes on principle, though I could accept a serious weakening of copyright (including much shorter terms of validity) as a more realistic measure.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Copyright is useful, but the terms are way too long.  At a minimum we should shorten copyright terms by 20 years by returning to the minimums under the Berne Convention (lifetime + 50 years or for corporate works 75 years).  Frankly, I'd favor a flat 50 year copyright term.

[RIP Robert H Bork]

Absolutely not!

[Obnoxiously Slutty Girly Girl]

Yes, of course.

Copyright laws are antiquated and immoral.

[Lunar]

If this was a response to my whining thread on my other board, I think the more relevant of an issue is whether this forum provides enough of a news outlet that it could or would ever be targeted by a lawsuit.  Free Republic is a news service, and they got sued for not using excerpts, but , but they were a huuuge website and reproduced copyright materials tons of times a day.

This website is much more low-key.

[Derek]

That's a very complex matter. God forbid Lars Olik not being able to afford a gold plated shark tank for another month, Britney Spears not being able to afford a Gulf Stream jet that doesn't even have a remote control for her surround sound system, and Master P not being able to buy an island in French Polynesia.  So as far as downloading music I don't see a problem. People download music online because they like the music obviously. Is success based on money, or how much someone likes their music? I'd like to think in most cases it's the latter. Besides, if people love a particular artist's or group's music enough to download onto their computer, then they'd be even more likely to continue going to concerts. Besides, most of the money that is made from purchasing CD's goes to the record companies anyhow. There are far greater problems facing our society such as hunger, socialism, and aids.

Now, copying someone else's work and passing it off as your own is an entirely different story. That's plagiarism and it's bad.

[Mercenary]

Not abolished but fundamentally changed.

[k-onmmunist]

Yeah.

[Vepres]

No

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

Nooooo.  Modified though.

[SPC]

Yes. The only legitimate purpose would be to prevent people from taking undeserved credit, which would already be considered fraud.

[John Dibble]

I'm in the camp that thinks they need to be changed.

Yes. The only legitimate purpose would be to prevent people from taking undeserved credit, which would already be considered fraud.

Well, there's also the whole thing about selling someone else's work. Wouldn't you be pissed off if you wrote a novel or something and someone else started selling copies of it without paying you a dime for your efforts?

[Earth]

Yes. The only legitimate purpose would be to prevent people from taking undeserved credit, which would already be considered fraud.

Unauthorized use for profit is much more pressing.

[Free Palestine]

If we were to eliminate copyright law, popular culture could be drastically changed.  I'd imagine that there would be fewer artists who care only about making millions.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

If we were to eliminate copyright law, popular culture could be drastically changed.  I'd imagine that there would be fewer artists who care only about making millions.

Depends upon the art.  Writers would be the artists most heavily affected, but I can't see sculptors being too heavily affected if copyright were abolished.

[Free Palestine]

If we were to eliminate copyright law, popular culture could be drastically changed.  I'd imagine that there would be fewer artists who care only about making millions.

Depends upon the art.  Writers would be the artists most heavily affected, but I can't see sculptors being too heavily affected if copyright were abolished.

I was thinking of musicians.  If everyone's downloading music for free, the groups that remain would be the ones who actually like making music, who are fine with the profits made from doing concerts and selling merchandise, and from fans who want to buy their music in order to support them.  People who get into singing in order to pursue a dream of making a major record deal and moving to Beverly Hills, however, will disappear.

People should have rights to their artistic works, like they would over any other property.  But the restrictions should be those covered by laws against fraud - you can't say that a song or book was made by you, and you cannot distribute other people's work for a profit.

[Dr. Cynic]

As someone who has worked in the entertainment industry, I would like to offer a unique perspective from someone with direct experience on the other side.

I've worked on a couple of movies and TV shows and I even get residual checks from time to time. They're not substantial, but they're decent little checks. Now, whenever someone would download that movie or TV show to watch, I don't get a check. But do I really care? No. Now, there are guys that get way more from their residuals than I do. They might have different opinions on it.

I believe copywright is dead though and I'll give you an example of my main problem with it: I met George Carlin a few months before his death. I mentioned to him that I grew up watching him on Shining Time Station (an extension show of Thomas the Tank Engine stories). Now, that show ran on PBS until about 1997 or so. Now, I know the show is sorta on youtube, mostly with poor quality. It's not available on DVD. However, it's still protected by copywright. Now, if a show is no longer available in the traditional markets anyway, you're not losing a profit. However, copywright has removed that and other normally unavailable shows from places like Youtube. That's my major problem with it. I believe information and entertainment should be readily available.

[Bo]

Not completely, but I think everything should go into the public domain after 20 years or less.

[Хahar 🤔]

I believe copywright is dead though and I'll give you an example of my main problem with it: I met George Carlin a few months before his death. I mentioned to him that I grew up watching him on Shining Time Station (an extension show of Thomas the Tank Engine stories). Now, that show ran on PBS until about 1997 or so. Now, I know the show is sorta on youtube, mostly with poor quality. It's not available on DVD. However, it's still protected by copywright. Now, if a show is no longer available in the traditional markets anyway, you're not losing a profit. However, copywright has removed that and other normally unavailable shows from places like Youtube. That's my major problem with it. I believe information and entertainment should be readily available.

Sort of unrelated, but I'm pretty sure I've seen that show on VHS.

[Gustaf]

Yes, why should we have to pay for stuff that we really like?

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

I'm a paid writer, so I may be a little biased, but I support copyright laws. I don't want other people profiting off of my work without my permission. And if I was selling my work to individuals (as opposed to a major corporation for ad-supported distribution, as is currently the case), I wouldn't want people cheating me by taking my work for free.

Of course, those laws are rigged to favor corporations and could use a good retooling. Still.

[Magic 8-Ball]

I believe copywright is dead though and I'll give you an example of my main problem with it: I met George Carlin a few months before his death. I mentioned to him that I grew up watching him on Shining Time Station (an extension show of Thomas the Tank Engine stories). Now, that show ran on PBS until about 1997 or so. Now, I know the show is sorta on youtube, mostly with poor quality. It's not available on DVD. However, it's still protected by copywright. Now, if a show is no longer available in the traditional markets anyway, you're not losing a profit. However, copywright has removed that and other normally unavailable shows from places like Youtube. That's my major problem with it. I believe information and entertainment should be readily available.

Sort of unrelated, but I'm pretty sure I've seen that show on VHS.

Were they bootlegs?  A lot of bootleggers misinterpret the Berne Convention to mean they can sell copies of films that haven't been released in the United States if the copyright holder doesn't plan to release them.  Most of the time, they apply it to foreign stuff, but I've seen people try to sell domestic titles using the same rationale.

It's pretty amusing how they all use the same sentence as their legal disclaimer.