From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V10 #70 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Friday, March 9 2001 Volume 10 : Number 070 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: Cathode Ray Gun [Christopher Gross ] Re: US Copyright law [Rob Gronotte ] TFTO mea culpa, Beatles, 33/45, divers alarums [grutness@surf4nix.com (Ja] Re: US Copyright law [Viv Lyon ] Re: Cathode Ray Gub [Michael Wolfe ] Re: delurking to push streaming content [Bayard ] np: jim white, no such place ["Andrew D. Simchik" ] Re: US Copyright law [Capuchin ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 09 Mar 2001 16:47:33 -0500 (EST) From: Christopher Gross Subject: Re: Cathode Ray Gun On Fri, 9 Mar 2001, The Great Quail wrote: > ... and besides, I have a mental image of Oregon as being > filled with naked hippies running around eating home made ice cream > and using Hot Tuna bootlegs as currency. Those hippies are a lot more practical than you give them credit for. If you're gonna eat ice cream while running, you OUGHT to be naked. I know Ben and Jerry made ice cream flavors in honor of Jerry Garcia and Phish. Did they ever make a Hot Tuna ice cream? As far as TV goes, I think the Quail is technically right -- there is a lot of good stuff on TV, and no one is forced to watch the bad stuff, or watch uncritically. Nevertheless, I still have a great deal of sympathy for the no-TV crowd, even the most annoyingly smug holier-than-thou members of it. First, despite the good shows, most TV is forgettable at best, and best forgotten. (Actually, I think TV fails to equal Sturgeon's Law -- *more* than 90% of it is crap.) Although you aren't forced to watch the bad shows, their obvious prevalence can easily give you a negative attitude toward TV in general. But beyond that, it's just so fucking *depressing* to realize that most of America spends most of its leisure time watching this junk. I can see how someone would want to boycott the whole thing as a form of psychic defense. (Song reference?) And then there's the commercials. Personally, I watch some TV (and I'd watch more if Bayard would buy me cable), but I usually hit mute or leave the room when the commercials are on. A few are enjoyable, especially the ones that feature hyenas, but most commercials are actively painful to watch. It's almost enough to turn you into a Tewsian socialist. - --Chris np: Clannad, _Clannad 2_ (again) ______________________________________________________________________ Christopher Gross On the Internet, nobody knows I'm a dog. chrisg@gwu.edu ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2001 18:15:49 -0500 (EST) From: Rob Gronotte Subject: Re: US Copyright law > The first amendment should AMEND the part of Article I Section 8 that is > the Congressional justification for copyright law. Congress should not > have been able to enact ANY of the subsequent "Copyright Acts" becaues > they were all in violation of the first amendment. That is all open to interpretation. I don't feel that any existing copyright laws in any way limit freedom of the press. A legitimate press does not consist of copies of previously published items. Fair use already allows small portions of copywritten material to be used. Anyway, the First 10 amendments are not really meant to change things in the constitution as are the following amendments. They were considered an addition to rectify things not mentioned in the original document. If anyone meant this to specifically cancel the copyright provision, it would have been mentioned as such. > The TENTH Amendment clearly states that any power not specifically > enumerated in the Constitution shall be reserved for the states or the > people. > > This means that if the Constitution doesn't say specifically that Congess > can do it, Congress CAN'T do it. That is true, however in current practice it is mostly ignored, not only in copyright law. It does say that the congress can regulate interstate commerce. This has been _very_ broadly interpreted by the supreme court to allow laws about many things not really mentioned in the constitution (for example, kidnapping is now a federal crime). I certainly think Copyright law is more directly related to interstate commerce than many things that section has been stretched to cover (even I think it has been stretched too far in some instances). > > On the opinion side, I can't beleive any reasonable person would not > > support reasonable copyright / Intellectual Property rights laws. > > Does that mean you don't think I, the EFF, and hundreds of law and > commerce experts worldwide are reasonable or that we don't exist? I personally have never heard anyone other than you and a few anarchists say they believe there should be no IP laws whatsoever. And from what I have read I don't feel you are reasonable, at least on this issue. > But then how do you address the issues "science and the useful arts", the > first amendment, etc.? I personally don't find much distinction between "useful arts" and "fine arts", and doubt the founders did either. I get utility from a Robyn Hitchcock CD, so it is useful to me. And certainly a business computer software program, for example, is more a useful art than a fine art anyway. > Rob is trying to say that people WON'T make copies because it's so cheap > to do it there won't be any profit. This is based on the mistaken belief > that people make copies for profit. I don't make copies for profit. I > make copies because I want to disseminate information. I don't sell > information. That is what I was asking, but I wasn't sure what was meant. I certainly agree that many people make copies not for profit, as do I personally as well. As Doug and I already mentioned, the government rarely if ever prosecutes based on not-for-profit copying. > Since it is infinitely reproducible with NO loss to the original holder of > the work, then one copy is the same as a million copies. The supply is > infinite and thefore, regardless of what the actual demand is, the > supply is greater than the demand and the value is zero. I do see what was meant by that theory now. To my mind that proves the point why IP laws are necessary; without them the value of anything creative will be zero, which I don't think is fair. Do you not think anything creative should have any monetary value whatsoever? I do. > I write computer programs. The people that pay me to write these programs > need to USE those programs. They don't sell them. That's not the > business they're in. They're in the business of moving bits... not > selling them. But they need computer programs that do particular things > to help them in their job of serving their customers. So they pay me to > create those programs. But after the program is created, they recognize > that they can have their copy and use it and they LOSE NOTHING by letting > other people take a copy... because transfer of that copy does not mean > they lose their copy. But what if there is another company in a similar business that then uses your program for free, thereby gaining a competitive advantage? Do you feel that would be fair? Eventually your company would go out of business. > Power is control and you cannot control something that is abundant. This > is the lost connection between the two meanings of the word "free". If it > is uncontrolled, you cannot make money on it. I thought you just said that the information you produce is uncontrolled, yet you still make money on it... Rob ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2001 12:24:47 +1300 From: grutness@surf4nix.com (James Dignan) Subject: TFTO mea culpa, Beatles, 33/45, divers alarums >>James (not taking bets on who'll be the first to name Yes's TFTO) various people have reminded me that this was, of course, a double album. It just felt long enough to be a triple ;) >What was the first Beatles single _not_ about love? Twist and shout, I suspect - released March 1964. >What was the final Beatles single? As to the last one, it depends on your definition: "Real love" counts on one definition, only having been released about three or four years back (or was something released of the new, disimproved Yellow Sub soundtrack?), but for the 'classic series', it'd be "The long and winding road", in May 1970. >>It's not, strictly speaking, a 7-inch 45. The Innocent Boy side is 45rpm, >>but the other side is 33.33333333333333333333333333333333333333333333rpm. > >I have a few U2 7-inchs from the "Joshua Tree" era that came this way: the >"single" on the a-side at 45 rpm, and two "b-sides" on the other side at 33 >1/3 rpm. Don't forget the Tall Dwarfs' "That's the short and the long of it LP/EP", 12" wide and 33 approx on one side, 45 on the other. >I still have a number of 12-inch singles from the '80's that were at 45 >rpm. You haven't lived until you've heard the extended dance remix of >"Tumble And Twirl." from twist and shout to tumble and twirl in one digest! >>So I'd say the lever is more versatile but, again, it wasn't really >>created by mankind. cotton buds! >PS: I am in the middle of a massive U2 marathon -- every CD, single, >ep and bootleg I own, which is quite a lot. LJ is loving it! ha! but do you own the NZ-only released single of "One tree hill"? (don't worry - the B-sides are both album tracks). James James Dignan, Dunedin, New Zealand. =-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-= -=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.- .-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=- You talk to me as if from a distance -.-=-.- And I reply with impressions chosen from another time =-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-. (Brian Eno - "By this River") ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2001 15:47:35 -0800 (PST) From: Viv Lyon Subject: Re: US Copyright law On Fri, 9 Mar 2001, Rob Gronotte wrote: > I do see what was meant by that theory now. To my mind that proves the > point why IP laws are necessary; without them the value of anything > creative will be zero, which I don't think is fair. Do you not think > anything creative should have any monetary value whatsoever? I do. The act of creation is what a person should get paid for, not control of the distribution. > But what if there is another company in a similar business that then uses > your program for free, thereby gaining a competitive advantage? Do you > feel that would be fair? Eventually your company would go out of > business. How on earth does that lead to competitive _advantage_? The most it does is level the playing field. > > Power is control and you cannot control something that is abundant. This > > is the lost connection between the two meanings of the word "free". If it > > is uncontrolled, you cannot make money on it. > > I thought you just said that the information you produce is uncontrolled, > yet you still make money on it... He makes money on the creation of it, not on the distribution (or lack thereof). People these days are making money by withholding information, not by disseminating it. Don't you see how that is fundamentally restrictive of information? It has a chilling effect on innovation and on creation. The act of creation is the irreplacable thing of value, not the created object itself, if it happens to be infinitely and cheaply reproducible. Vivien ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 09 Mar 2001 23:08:39 +0000 (GMT) From: Michael Wolfe Subject: Re: Cathode Ray Gub Quail sez: >Heh heh . . . I didn't know you didn't own a TV, I was actually >taking an all-too easy poke at Cappy! So don't take it too >personally, and besides, I have a mental image of Oregon as >being filled with naked hippies running around eating home made >ice cream and using Hot Tuna bootlegs as currency. Ah, ok. Cappy's actually got gobs of t.v.'s. His house has 'em thick as thieves. You're actually pretty much on the money as far as your assessment of Oregon goes, too. I just spilled a half pint of marionberry swirl into my keyboard. But do you have any idea how hard it is to get change for a 6/13/74 live at the Cow Palace? And the ATM's need to be refilled, like, hourly, 'cause casette tapes are so bulky. By buddy got busted the other day for burning CD-R's. They said he was counterfeiting. >I suppose I just don't understand.... I mean, you can turn it >off, you can change the channels.... But you did allude to a >childhood enslavement, which I can certainly understand. In >fact, I am still being deprogrammed from my "Scrappy Doo must >Die" incident. Well, I don't know how it is with you, but for me, there are a number of criteria that I consider to determine what I actually do. It's not just, "what would I most like to be doing right now?" There's a certain amount of inertia involved. "What would I like to be doing now? What would be the best thing for my health/well-being? What is the easiest thing?" These are all questions that I ask myself, consciously and unconsciously, with varying weights to each of them at different times. There are times when the last question takes so much precedence that I'm not even considering the first two, and television takes tremendous advantage of those times. You could argue that my sum answer to all of the questions, based on the weights that I assign them, really DOES represent what I want most, but I don't buy it. If I consistently make decisions based largely on "what's easiest?", I become flabby in all sorts of ways. Unused muscles become flab, unused brains become flab. Unused spirit becomes flab. I have to compel myself to make decisions sometimes where the sum total of the answers of all of those weighted questions is less than the maximum possible, because it will make me "strong" enough in the future that I'll have more options to consider when I'm deciding what to do. In this particular case: I just feel that if I watch tv, sometimes it becomes impossible to do anything but keep watching tv, due to inertia. Then it becomes impossible to do anything but choose to watch tv because I'm so flabby (mentally, physically, etc.) that doing anything else is either extremely unpleasant or flat-out impossible because it involves using "muscles" that are completely atrophied. And yes, remembering how I spent my childhood is a big motivation. I've always been physically skinny, but in many ways, I was very, very flabby. By the way, I don't own a computer for exactly the same reason that I don't own a t.v.: I *LOVE* computer games -- they're like t.v. crossed with super-cia-distilled-crack to me. I think computers are wonderful things, and I'm amazed at what folks can do with them. But because of computer games, they just make me extremely flabby. (Just another 3 hours of Ultima IV won't hurt me, no no.) >Yes, being called weird by me is something else, isn't it? I >hope you are truly considering the source! I am honored, sir. >But as far as entertainment goes, there's Futurama, The >Simpsons, The Sopranos, Oz, South Park, occasional cool >shows with bugs fucking to Mozart, occasional cool shows about >Hitler on the History channel, there's Live from Lincoln Center, >there's King of the Hill, the X-Files, Ebert & Doper, Buffy and >Angel, various Star Trek amusements, Mash reruns, Babylon 5, and >Will and Grace. Great! I do find myself missing the Simpsons from time to time. But really, only when someone brings them up. I just find that, again, I get more satisfaction out of doing other things. (I thought about posting a list of the things that I enjoy doing but decided that would be obnoxious.) >TVs can explode?!?? Wow, cool! There's another point in their >favor! Yep. Just ask the King. Eb flowed: >OK, but you seem to be the biggest film-goer on the whole list! >Do you really put *that* much distinction between the two >mediums? Particularly, when talking about *current* film? Well, in some ways, you are correct, especially with all of the product placement and accompanying advertising that one is subjected to in the modern movie-going experience. But first of all, I don't find myself attending many Jerry Bruckheimer testosterone fests or Freddie Prinze Jr. romantic comedies, which is where I feel the bulk of the overlap occurs. Secondly, one thing that I value most about movies is the depth that they can convey. I personally feel that the Simpsons is the best that t.v. has to offer. In many ways, with it's hyper-awareness of the conventions of it's own media, it's sort of a distillation of the t.v. experience. But it strikes me as all too perfect that the Simpsons consists entirely of 2-d drawings -- there is absolutely no depth to television. There's plenty of *meta*-text, but absolutely no *sub*-text. Do you ever find yourself watching the Simpsons and wondering what motivates Marge in her relationship with Homer, or considering the subtleties of the relationship between the two parents in "Family Ties"? In the same way that one might consider the relationship between Maggie Cheung's and Tony Leung's characters in Wong Kar-Wai's latest movie (the sublime In the Mood For Love)? T.V. is all foreground -- it's no wonder that television hasn't spawned any critics who write with the passion or literacy of a Farber, a Kael, or even an Ebert. There's just not all that much to consider. I just finished attending the Portland International Film Festival, and I wrote a festival journal which I posted to a movie discussion listserv that I belong to. I found that writing about my experience, and recording my observations about each film enhanced incredibly what I took from the experience. Furthermore, festival journals and sharing film experiences through the writing of reviews (Without pay! Just for the love of talking about films!) is extremely commonplace in that community of online cinephiles. Maybe it's a failing of my own imagination, maybe I don't run with the right crowd, but I can't conceive of anyone whose first reaction to watching a marathon t.v. session would be to compose a dissertation on his experience. - -Michael Wolfe ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2001 19:42:49 -0500 (EST) From: Bayard Subject: Re: delurking to push streaming content > uh, that's all I got, except that I've never heard my life's theme song (the > Supremes doing "I hear a Symphony"?) Maybe I'll check out the MP3 when I get > my new computer next month. I'll see you DC fegs at the 9:30 club in a few > weeks, just someone like bayard post wherever we're meeting. (bayard, if you > want, I'll bring that Bongos Bass and Bob LP I promised you) Cool then. I think we decided we're meeting at your house before the 9:30 club show, right? Should I bring the tequila? ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 09 Mar 2001 17:13:37 -0800 From: "Andrew D. Simchik" Subject: np: jim white, no such place Love it. And I "don't even like country." - -- Andrew D. Simchik, drew at stormgreen dot com http://www.stormgreen.com/ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2001 20:33:35 -0800 (PST) From: Capuchin Subject: Re: US Copyright law While I don't think you're going to get it, Rob, I'm trying again. Just remember WHY things get created... if it is truly useful or needed or if an artist is truly compelled by his inner muse, it will be created with or without patent and copyright. On Fri, 9 Mar 2001, Rob Gronotte wrote: > That is all open to interpretation. I don't feel that any existing > copyright laws in any way limit freedom of the press. Clearly you don't think this is true without qualification. You think that it doesn't limit a "legitimate" press. But copyright law is SPEICIFICALLY a limitation to the freedom of the press. > A legitimate press does not consist of copies of previously published > items. The entire purpose of the first amendment was to show that no law shall ever try to make a distinction between "legitimate" and "illegitimate" press. The press is sacrosanct, in that way. What is illegitimate today may be the Holy Bible of tomorrow. The courts and Congress cannot decide what press is legitimate or not. > Fair use already allows small portions of copywritten material to be > used. "Fair use", as you call it, is extremely new to copyright law. We didn't get a fair use provision in this country until 1976. And it was added because the common law interpretation that became the fair use provision of the Copyright Act was being too broadly applied for the entertainment industry's liking. > Anyway, the First 10 amendments are not really meant to change things in > the constitution as are the following amendments. They were considered an > addition to rectify things not mentioned in the original document. If > anyone meant this to specifically cancel the copyright provision, it would > have been mentioned as such. Jefferson would disagree. They are actually a re-write of the bulk of the Constitution of the State of Virginia. And they were adopted as amendments because they were intended to rectify some of the "committee compromises" that were made at the Constitutional Congress... like the copyright clause. The adoption of the Constitution was done in a way different from the adoption of an amendment, so it was decided that certain things would be added later to fix the problems. > > The TENTH Amendment clearly states that any power not specifically > > enumerated in the Constitution shall be reserved for the states or the > > people. > That is true, however in current practice it is mostly ignored, not only > in copyright law. In fact, you'll see that the Congressional Record reflects EXACTLY which power of Congress as defined in Article I Section 8 allows for any given piece of legislation. > It does say that the congress can regulate interstate commerce. This > has been _very_ broadly interpreted by the supreme court to allow laws > about many things not really mentioned in the constitution (for > example, kidnapping is now a federal crime). > > I certainly think Copyright law is more directly related to interstate > commerce than many things that section has been stretched to cover (even > I think it has been stretched too far in some instances). The interpretation of the commerce clause (as opposed to the copyright clause of Article 1 Section 8) as a justification for copyright-style legislation assumes that ideas are a commodity instead of ephemeral, non-restricted, infinitely supplied and infinitely reproducable. It's a false assumption from the get-go. Ideas are not property. The notion that ideas ARE property is not a natural one and hence, the separate distinction under the law. It is clear that sharing information is not commerce. That's why we separate the two. If it were "plain" that ideas WERE a commodity, there would be no need for distinct copyright and commerce clauses. You own a thing if you have the power to destroy it. Power is the ability to control and ultimately destroy. Does someone at your work have "power" over your job if they cannot get you fired? No. Power comes from being able to take the job away. Do you have power over the universe? No, it's bigger than you are and you cannot destroy it. Do you have power over the words you've sent to the list? No. They are gone from your power. They are free in the world and you cannot destroy them. Does Woj have power over your words? No, Woj has power over the archives. Your words exist in hundreds of mail systems around the world. You cannot destroy it, you cannot change it. You have no power over it... you do not own it. > I personally have never heard anyone other than you and a few > anarchists say they believe there should be no IP laws whatsoever. > And from what I have read I don't feel you are reasonable, at least on > this issue. Well, if you want a list of like-minded individuals who are most certainly not anarchists, I'll hook you up... better yet, join the EFF. > I personally don't find much distinction between "useful arts" and "fine > arts", and doubt the founders did either. Then why did they say "useful arts" and not simply "the arts"? The distinction between the "fine" and "useful" arts has been around since the 18th century. Before that, in the more classical mode (that is to say, for the Greeks), the distinction was made between the "liberal arts" and the "servile arts". Look up "the arts" in a good encyclopedia. Compton's or Brittanica will do. Stewart? Is there a section in there distinguishing the fine and useful arts? If I had an electronic copy, I'd find it immediately for you. The law makes a VERY clear distinction between the fine and useful arts. There is even a legal test for determining whether an act was that of the useful or fine arts. The other senses of the words "fine" and "useful" aren't really that important. The "fine arts", for example, are refered to as the "beaux arts" by the French... and the "Schone Kunst"... both of those mean something like "beautiful arts". It doesn't matter what YOU think of as "useful". > And certainly a business computer software program, for example, is > more a useful art than a fine art anyway. First, a program is neither a fine or a useful art... PROGRAMMING is a fine or useful art... arts are acts and practices, not objects or ideas. And while I'd agree that computer programming is more of a useful art than a fine art in most cases, the entertainment and publishing industries didn't like the idea of considering programs "inventions" (which is what they would be, if their creation was a useful art) because patents aren't as long-term as copyrights... so when they sought "protection" from the government, they called computer programs "works of literature". > That is what I was asking, but I wasn't sure what was meant. I > certainly agree that many people make copies not for profit, as do I > personally as well. As Doug and I already mentioned, the government > rarely if ever prosecutes based on not-for-profit copying. It's not illegal. Period. Get that into your head. Copying is not illegal. Copying is not illegal. The USE of some copies can be illegal. That is all. > I do see what was meant by that theory now. To my mind that proves > the point why IP laws are necessary; without them the value of > anything creative will be zero, which I don't think is fair. There are so many misunderstandings here. Let me begin somewhere... You say "the value of anything creative will be zero". First, "anything creative" is incorrect. Specifically, we're talking about information... be that music, colors, words, raw bits, or whatever. Creating that information takes effort. That effort is in limited supply and therefore valuable. But the information once produced and published is NOT valuable. That is an important distinction. You don't think it's fair that published information is without value? Not fair to whom? The creator? Well, the creator created it for his own reasons. Essentially, creation happens for two reasons: necessity of product or necessity of action. That is to say, you either need to USE the thing you create (like me writing a program for my company) or you need to DO the act of creating (like Doug and his music). These forces exist independent of the life of the information AFTER it is created or used by the creator for his specific purpose. Essentially, this is the difference between useful and fine arts as well. So fuck the information AFTER it's been created... it has served its purpose. It is done and the creator can rest or it is being used by its creator for some ongoing function. Either way, it doesn't matter what someone ELSE does with it. It was created for something else. And we can all do without information that was created purely for the purpose of selling. That is the truly valueless kind of information. > Do you not think anything creative should have any monetary value > whatsoever? I do. That's a misleading question. An object is worth what someone will pay for it. That price is dependent on all kinds of things, but most importantly the scarcity of the materials and craftsmanship. (Trademarks on the outside of clothing are another way the control of information artificially induces scarcity, obviously.) If the output of a creative endeavor is information and that information can be digitized and is published, then clearly it has no monetary value. It is now a free thing because it is infinitely reproducible and available to the world. Creative WORK, however, is extremely scarce and valuable. For example, nobody plays a song exactly like Tom Waits plays a song. And Tom Waits is a living person with a finite amount of time and energy to spend playing songs. Therefore, Tom can charge folks a heaping pile of money to come hear him play a song in person. His creative act is valuable. But the digitized remnants of the vibrations he produced were free for the copying once he produced them. > But what if there is another company in a similar business that then > uses your program for free, thereby gaining a competitive advantage? > Do you feel that would be fair? Eventually your company would go out > of business. We absolutely count on other companies using the programs we write. And they tell us when it doesn't work as they expected... and we fix it and make it better. And we do the same for the software they write. You may ask "What if someone comes along that doesn't participate? What if they just take the work and don't give back anything?" The answer is that they lose in the end because they are not creative and they cannot solve their own problems... they have to wait for someone else to solve the problem first. > > Power is control and you cannot control something that is abundant. This > > is the lost connection between the two meanings of the word "free". If it > > is uncontrolled, you cannot make money on it. > I thought you just said that the information you produce is uncontrolled, > yet you still make money on it... WRONG. I make money CREATING, not selling the fruits of my creativity. The work is gone once I check the file into the revision control system. It belongs nobody once it is published to a newsgroup or posted to an ftp server or sent out on a mailing list. The information is uncontrolled, but my creativity is not. I can stop writing programs tomorrow. There are a finite number of people who can write the programs I write. (It's a large number, but finite!) My time writing programs is limited by my lifespan and my interest in the projects I'm handed and all kinds of other things. I am paid for my time and effort, so long as that effort is useful. But the effluence... the side-effect of my work is this program. And it can be shared with the world... so why NOT share it? Why keep this information a secret when we can use it and still give it away? J. - -- _______________________________________________ Capuchin capuchin@bitmine.net Jeme A Brelin ------------------------------ End of fegmaniax-digest V10 #70 *******************************