Not too long ago we had a semi-loss for The Pirate Bay in The Netherlands, which was convicted ‘by default’ because the defendants did not show up in court to plea their case. Today, The Netherlands once again saw a ruling in a high-profile piracy case, and again, there’s a loss for the defendants. Update: Oh, and by the way – thought about putting some lyrics you like on your website or blog? Think again. We live in a crazy world, people.
This time, the lawsuit focussed on Mininova, a bitorrent search engine similar to The Pirate Bay. Like The Pirate Bay case, this one was also started by BREIN, the Dutch variant of the RIAA/MPAA, and again, just like the previous suite, BREIN won. However, it’s easy to misread the actual verdict.
The judge in the case actually makes it quite clear that Mininova itself is not doing anything illegal, that it’s not breaking the law. The judge sentenced Mininova not because it is performing an illegal act, but because Mininova is not doing enough to stop the illegal act. Since downloading copyrighted content in The Netherlands is legal, said ‘illegal act’ is not downloading, but uploading.
More specifically, the judge said that Mininova made it possible for people to breach Dutch copyright law, Mininova promoted these acts, and profited from these acts. Currently, Mininova employs the “Notice and Take Down-procedure”, in which rightsholders can contact Mininova so that they can then remove offending content. This procedure is not enough, the court states.
The verdict, therefore, reads that Mininova must remove all offending torrents from their website, and from here on out, they must actively prevent such torrents from being uploaded to the website. The fine for not complying within three months of this verdict is as follows: Mininova will have to pay 1000 EUR per offending torrent to BREIN, with a maximum of 5000000 EUR.
Mininova co-founder Erik Dubbelboer isn’t particularly pleased with the verdict, obviously. “We are obviously not happy with the verdict,” he said in a statement. Mininova will most likely appeal the decision, for which they have three months’ time.
I’ll let you have this one, BREIN. You’re fighting the tides, and sooner or later you’ll have to face the new reality of the modern, 21st century entertainment industry. While it may not seem so today, it is still the case that laws should exist to serve the people – not the other way around.
Enjoy your victory while you can.
“laws should exist to serve the people – not the other way around.”
And what is the other way around? People exist to serve the laws
I have no idea what this is supposed to mean.
The notion of ‘the people’ is rather fickle if you ask me. I’m sure many in entertainment industry are in fact people and they might feel their work is being taken without fair compensation. (True or not… that is a valid issue)
And ‘the people’ cannot mean the majority as then you could oppress minorities.
It’s not supposed to be seen as benefiting or harming anyone. Justice is supposed to be blind. If uncle Scrooge is right, then the law should be on his side. If the poor pauper is right, the law should be on his side.
In any case, if mininova is doing its job in terms of taking down content when it is notified, I find it hard to believe that is not enough. Let the RIAA and that like do the work and automate searches to find infringing material. That’s an uphill battle to say the least
They’d probably do better working with the distribution methods to get their content out there.
I’m still amazed, I cannot use my cable box to access some huge archive somewhere and watch anyshow anytime.
I agree with you that the phrasing of that statement is overly simplistic, and I share your hesitation on the issue of simple majority rule. However, I think that the spirit of the statement is that copyright law has become completely perverted.
Copyright was invented to protect the market for authors’ new works because at the time, whenever a new book was released, a bunch of parasites (book publishers) would make and sell copies so fast that in many cases the original author wouldn’t make much money. It created a time-limited monopoly on publishing that served the public by making it easier for creators to benefit from the publication of their works, thereby giving writers incentive to advance the culture, very similar to the idea of patents encouraging innovation.
But publishing houses became rich and powerful, particularly after the advent of recorded music and movies. Being rich and powerful, they corrupted the governments and, over decades, extended the length and breadth of copyright laws, and will continue to do so indefinitely, until they achieve their ultimate goal: that no new culture enters the public domain ever again. Disney never wants to lose Mickey Mouse, and, thanks to their influence with lawmakers, they never will.
So originally copyright law always existed to serve a particular person, the creator, balanced against the interests of the culture at large, that has always benefited being able to appropriate and change creative works of the past (for example, I don’t think that any of Shakespeare’s plays is based on an original story that Shakespeare made up. Modern copyright law will make sure that there will never be another Shakespeare.)
Plus, we now know that the realities of 20th century publishing made it almost impossible for a creator to distribute their works without giving a major cut of the profits to a gatekeeper. In a way, the parasites found a way to put themselves in control.
Now, I think that the original spirit of copyright is still valid. I don’t think there’s anything wrong in the idea that a band that makes a new song should have a monopoly on distribution for a certain time, maybe 15-20 years. But ownership of most cultural goods today now lies in the hands of immortal, powerful corporations who will never willingly give up the opportunity to extract value from them perpetually.
The important cultural icons of the past few decades need to eventually be freed, for the sake of our cultural evolution. Indiana Jones and Darth Vader and “Start me Up” and “Blowin’ in the Wind” and Holden Caulfield need to be able to be reimagined and misappropriated without the corporate media companies or heirs of the author, or even the author himself being able to interfere. I’m looking at you, Salinger!
Is outright revolt against the spirit of copyright the right way to make this change happen? As much as I believe that violent overthrow of the old order is pretty much never the right path, I’m starting to think that perhaps it is the likeliest way in this case. We’re not going to get copyright pushed back to 20 years by writing letters to congress, and the media titans aren’t going to give up their positions. They may have to be destroyed before a new, 21st century cultural distribution system can be erected in its place.
A good and insightful comment, David.
Laws should guarantee some kind of a balance, not let some party and their greed become the ruling principle in a society but protect all parties from the greed of others.
There are lots of myths surrounding the discussion related to piracy.
In many cases when people download pirated movies or music, they probably would not have gone buying that stuff if the torrent sites didn’t give it to them free. Piracy may, of course, hurt business to some extent, but the big figures usually presented as lost money because of piracy are an exaggerated myth.
Or, is it really so that when someone reads Bob Dylan’s lyrics for free online, Bob Dylan just lost a lot of money because of that? Of course not, that idea is just ridiculous. In fact, reading Dylan’s lyrics online could also be seen as a good advertisement for Dylan, encouraging people to buy his music and writings too.
In fact, there are cases when publishing commercial video content online for free has actually encouraged the sales of that material, like when the Monty Python group put much of their material online for free:
“Monty Python’s free web video increased DVD sales by 23,000 percent”
http://boingboing.net/2009/01/23/monty-pythons-free-w.html
People, both the entertainment/software industries and individual downloaders of pirated content tend to see things from their own narrow perspective only without considering the wider circumstances and context. People tend to be greedy, both ordinary consumers and the industry giants. Piracy can be wrong, but neither is the entertainment industry always a pure white angel serving the interests of the public and artists only. All too often they seem to be in the business only for the money, big money, giving not much consideration to the real interests of artists or consumers.
There are many examples from the past. Let’s take Jimi Hendrix as an example. The guy was a true artist and musical innovator but both during his life and even after his death he was constantly ripped off by the greedy entertainment industry who didn’t seem to give any respect for his music and artistic standards and ideas. He was not allowed to concentrate on making new music but was pushed to long tours that finally seemed to have burnt him out completely. After his death all material left from him like very low class rehearsal tapes etc. have been sold as genuine Hendrix material by the greedy music industry.
Is the music industry really serving the interests of the artists in cases like this? Certainly not, and I don’t think the situation has gotten any better since then, considering, for example, the (IMHO) awful quality of most popular music today.
Edited 2009-08-26 16:28 UTC
And there’s nothing wrong with media companies or any other business interests being in it just for the money. If they think they can make money distributing culture, then great for them, even if they don’t care about the culture. What’s wrong is that we allow our laws to be tilted to benefit them disproportionate to the benefit to the creators, consumers, and our overall cultural heritage.
And it’s true, the kind of vacuuming and hoarding that most file sharers do really distorts the actual economic harm that file sharing causes. But on the other hand, if you’re a band in the 21st century, you can’t count on selling CDs as a major source of your revenue anymore. You just have to hope that your fame spreads peer to peer based on your music’s merits and you can find other ways to capitalize on that. I would have rather been a musician in the pre-internet age.
I’ll clarify my statement about laws/people.
The full quote goes like this: laws should exist for people – people should not exist for laws.
What I mean by this is that laws should be a reflection of the people they govern. For instance, in The Netherlands, we are a relatively progressive people when it comes to drugs and sex – the majority believes that what you do in your bedroom or what substances you choose to use is your problem, not society’s. As long as you do not harm others, it’s really none of our business.
Our laws reflect this. We have relatively loose drug laws, and we were the first country to legalise same-sex marriage. This means that our laws on marriage and drugs reflect who we, as a people, are.
The United States, however, is a different country. The majority of the American people have different ideas about drugs and sex, and as such, American laws reflect this. As a Dutchman, I find those laws barbaric and idiotic, but I still respect them because they reflect who the American people are and what they stand for.
When it comes to copyright, as David eloquently explained, copyright law quite clearly no longer reflects the people – quite the opposite. The people have decided – with a massively overwhelming vote – that they do not wish to respect copyright law.
What should have happened is that copyright law was altered to reflect this change – similar to drugs and marriage laws. However, because of the powerful position of the multimedia industry, this has not happened. We, as people, have handed over control over copyright law to Disney & Co.
What you see going on currently, with the advent of Pirate Parties and the ineffectiveness of the RIAA/MPAA/BREIN/etc., is that the people are doing what they should be doing in case laws become out touch with the people: ignore them.
In 50 years, I will have to explain to my grandchildren how e could’ve been such idiots back then about copyright. They’ll think we were backwards, in the same way I already find countries where gay marriage is banned to be backwards.
BREIN and the RIAA can blow their horn all they want, but in a few decades, maybe even sooner, the multimedia landscape will be completely different from what it is now. Artists will have to find different ways of earning income, and they may have to settle for 10 million EUR instead of 12 million EUR. Big whoopdeedoo.
I advise everyone to download their assess off when it comes to copyrighted content. If the usual, democratic measures no longer work, then it’s time for the people to initiate changes in laws via other means. I personally still buy most of my multimedia (I never download music or movies, only some TV series), but then again, I like those boxes and jewel cases.
So everyone should ignore copyright laws and take intellectual work without paying for it? That is democratic?
If you don’t like how software or media is distributed or protected by copyright laws then don’t purchase it. That’s the democratic thing to do. Vote by not taking part.
Songs on itunes are a buck each, video rentals can be had for less than $5. These types of arguments for taking the work of others without compensation are poorly rationalized, especially in the context of human needs. These are luxury items, you don’t have to have them.
We’d say something like “The government should serve the people, not the other way around”.
Yes. And why have people let it happen, especially in the USA? Because of people being fooled into blindly believing in the almighty power of greedy capitalism as a solution to all problems in a society.
I disagree and fail to see how there would be nothing wrong with media companies or other businesses serving their own greedy interests only, and not caring for their customers, artists, culture, environment and other such values. Like in any other field of life there are both good and bad ways to make business. Plain selfish business greed has simply never served the interest of customers best, usually quite on the contrary.
It is only a natural result of the religious belief in the almighty power of laissez-faire capitalism if the laws or big companies don’t serve the interests of people anymore. Actually, people could only blame themselves if they let big greedy corporations rule their lives instead of taking power into their own hands by the means of democratic and balanced law making where you have to discuss with and listen to all parties and interest groups.
And, by the way, the same ultra capitalistic ideology based on greed is the reason for the current financial crisis in the USA too, or for the ever growing income gap between the small ultra rich minority and the ordinary American citizens, or for there not being much government supported social security for ordinary US citizens (unlike in most European countries, for example), etc.etc…
Edited 2009-08-27 04:17 UTC
If media companies are in the business just for the money and greed, not even trying to serve any higher purposes (like the true interests of artists and customers), what moral right would they actually have to claim that downloading their stuff for free would be wrong? After all, wouldn’t the downloader of pirated content and the big greedy media company both be following the exact same credo, being greedy and not caring for the interests of anybody else…
In a democracy, if we want to have balanced and respected copyright and other laws respecting all interest groups, we cannot just follow the greedy whims of those who happen to be strongest in some situation, be they greedy corporations or greedy piracy supporters. The main goal of all law making is to restrict the greed of people (and so companies and business) so that civilized living together is possible.
Portraying companies as selfish and greedy isn’t a good excuse for ignoring copyright laws. Businesses by nature are self-serving. They exist to make money, but at the same time they have to provide a service to artists if they want the artist to sign. They also have to provide something of value to consumers or else they will replaced by a competitor. Serving others for selfish reasons. It’s capitalism and it works better than the alternatives.
Most artists dream of getting a deal with a record company. It’s a business relationship they dream of since it allows them make music for a living. The record company makes the majority of the profit but they also are the ones making the investment. The artist is always free to self-produce and distribute, especially in our internet age. However most artists want to sign with a company because they know that by partnering with a record company they can expect greater return than if they go it alone.
The same goes for authors. Authors know that the book publisher makes the majority of the profits but they still dream of getting a book deal. They know that without the publisher they wouldn’t be able to produce, market and distribute their book at the same level. Furthermore, they don’t want to. Artists want to create, they don’t want to spend time studying ideal distribution points. That job belongs to someone else. It’s called economic specialization.
If you don’t like the business relationship that artists and record companies have then you are free to not purchase the music. Breaking the law because you don’t like the relationship that artists willingly take part is a lousy excuse. You are free to find artists that are unsigned and self-distribute.
Authors and artists that relinquish responsibility of their OWN material then shouldn’t have any complaints. They give their stuff to “greedy distributor x” it is not theirs anymore so why worry about it. It is kind of amusing that the cost to produce music is so small compared to the cost of hiring the lawyers to litigate and to lobby and middle management that for every song you buy you’re not really buying music but more likely funding some lawyer somewhere.
It is a much more difficult road to remain independent but it provides more control. Only then can an artist complain about piracy.
Well, I didn’t want to portray media companies as greedy only, and I’m certainly not opposing modern free market system in itself.
I was just saying that you can do business both in a good or a bad way. It is up to democratic law making to ensure that business is done in a good way that serves people, artists, customers and society the best. It is also an unrealistic and ideological myth to claim that the free markets by themselves will always be able to miraculously turn the bad things into good ones.
The mafia and crime can be seen as business too. Selling non-working crap as magical equipment that will miraculously improve your health and life is business too. Heck, even selling pirated content is a big business in the third world countries. How could you ever fight them if you think that business will take care of itself without any need for restricting such business by laws? Greed is greed, and it often needs to be restricted, especially when people may not notice the danger they may be facing if they buy bad products.
There are many examples of both good and bad media business. Not every artist in history has been very happy just because they have gotten a poor contract with some media company. Sometimes those media companies have been acting like pimps, not much caring for the interests of those they should serve. Also, these times media companies have become huge empires that try to dictate to us, according to their own commecial interests, what things we should consume, what music to listen to etc. If you are a talented musician but are not willing to sell your whole artistic person (music style, image etc.) to these commercial empires, it may be quite difficult to even get that record contract in the first place.
“Is it really jazz that you want to play? Hahaha… Get out of here grandpa! And no, we really don’t care how well you can play or sing, or whether you studied music at the Juilliard or not. It is hot music videos and rap that sell these days. Hmm, but your wife, she has a nice ass; if she could get off her clothes we might give her a dance job on our next hiphop video. Still interested?”
Book publishers exist to add value to the author’s work. They provide services like production, marketing and distribution that the author could not provide alone. Without the publisher the author could not make as much from his work. That’s why it is still a dream for authors to sign on with a publisher.
I guess I didn’t make myself clear. I’m talking about 18th century book publishers, that didn’t pay the author anything, and competed vigorously with the publisher that the author had chosen to print and distribute the books for them. These “pirate” publishers were most definitely parasites.
That’s a huge technical feat.
The cable companies don’t have unlimited bandwidth. Here’s a good read on what they’re currently doing to tackle the problem.
http://tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=357703
The entertainment companies need to find a way to compete with file sharers. They’re are options like AmazonOnDemand, Hulu.
The problem is Hulu doesn’t want to be seen from your living room TV. They block apps like Boxee, the PS3 browser etc, which IMO the FCC should be looking into.
AmazonOnDemand uses DRM’d which could be a non issue if it was available on CableBoxes, Tivo’s, media center PC’s, etc. Unfortunately all the cable boxes don’t contain any third party delivery system. The price is also an issue with me. Why pay for a DRM ridden digital copy when I could pay for a physical DVD for about the same price.
Edited 2009-08-26 16:39 UTC
Well, if it’s not blind, and it exists to serve the interests of some organizations with outdated ideas about protection of their questionable assets, then that’s a problem.
If you get things in the right places, you can sue/execute almost anyone, for anything. Law is becoming like that movie “The number 23” or just “23”, I’m not sure.
Those sites that were sued because they were hosting lyrics is way over absurd… Is like having a site that lists anything that is copyrighted, for example, car dealers, to be sued. After all, they are listing the brand of the cars, that are registered by their original companies AND are making money by dealing with this information, on top of that. How nonsense that would be?
But a site hosting Torrents with (mainly) illegal content (C’mon, we all know what Mininova is, is the replacement for SuprNova that was shutdown years ago) is like having a catalog for drug dealers, mercenaries. Did you get the picture? Off course, I understand that the site cannot be accounted with the responsability about the torrents uploaded but if something illegal (piracy) is uploaded, it should be deleted. There is no excuse for that.
It’s like the guys here in Brazil that say they don’t have money to buy every movie they want, so they pirate it. That just doesn’t make sense. you CANT buy everything you want, you won’t have enough money for that, for sure, so you buy just what is within your reach. People come up with such lame, torrid excuses to justify software piracy… It’s unbelievable.
I thing the world is coming to an end.
…
Yep. And they do it, already.
But before removing illegal content, one must identify it. How do you that without copyrights owners being involved in process? Why one should spent *his* time *and* money to protect *their* rights owners for free, as in beer?!
Isn’t the fee rights owners pay to RIAA & like for funding rights protection “costs”? Today it seems they spent it in aftermath Justice costs, not to cover preventive protection costs.
What would be the next step? Enforcing a tax on any site just because they could miss an illegal content hosted or even just linked there, and that hypothetical risk must be compensate to rights owners!?
Don’t laugh, we already have a tax in France on every digital support that *could* contains fair copy of a copyrighted content, while in the same time such fair copy while done by breaking DRM is now considered illegal by law. How ironic, we’re taxed to compensate an act which is illegal. Tax recepients are, by such definition, making profit from illegal activity.
And, in the background, copyrights lifetime may be extended 90 years *after* the death of creator.
How cool is that!?
Patents, copyrights & like are turning into a legal racket more and more. No wonder people don’t respect it anymore. Respect is not due, you deserve it.
Or not.
Guess they’re doing everything to lost it all.
“no money, no addiction”
So, it seem that people see software piracy as a normal thing when it isn’t. It seems just where I’m leaving (Portugal) where they like to go above speed limit and when the cops to a velocity control they call it “ticket chase” …
Anyway .. I agree … world is coming to and end the thing that is getting stronger are lawsuits and the payback of those lawsuits … But, one thing is for sure … a movie or a cd are getting expensive.
In her a cd or a movie dvd is around 20^a‘not to 25^a‘not. If we go HD the minunum is 30^a‘not. Not speaking about video games that start at 50^a‘not … They could be cheaper and sell in massive thoses getting the benefits of scale economy ( don’t know the correct term in english )
In the UK you are allowed, by law, to provide copyrighted material in an accessible format if the rights-holder does not.
A disabled user was publishing movie-times in an accessible format because the cinema^aEURTMs website did not. They tried to sue, and failed under the basis that the user was protected under disability discrimination.
Lyrics, it could be argued, fall under the same principle^aEUR”a transcription of audio made for accessibility purposes.
Kroc, by “movie-times” you mean at which time a certain movie was going to be on the cinema? The time of the session and so on or I got it wrong?
And they actually tried to sue the guy?
UNBELIEVABLE!
I don’t have words for that…
I can think of just only one explanation: there is person completely DUMB on the other side to actually start a legal action or a person (if this thing can actually be called a person) with no character at all to do that. A scrupless lawyer would do such a thing.
Still, I think I got it wrong, it just can’t be.
Here^aEURTMs an article about it: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3899685.stm Also see the ^aEURoeGet it Right^aEUR header further down where the new law is described. Here^aEURTMs the actual guy^aEURTMs site http://www.dracos.co.uk/odeon/
Wow Kroc, it seems the more I learn about the UK the more I’d like to live there instead of this backward place we call the United States.
Oh and I think it is funny that Thom supports breaking copyright law when this website uses it:
Reproduction of OSAlert stories is permitted only with explicit authorization from OSAlert. Reproductions must be properly credited.
Copyright laws allows intellectual work to have value that wouldn’t exist if it could be legally duplicated by competitors. The majority of the work involved in creating intellectual proprety is the creative process, not the distribution. Allowing unregulated distribution takes value away from the creator and places it onto the distributor who created nothing.
The real parasites are people like the pirate bay who made over a million off the work of others. Calling publishing companies pirates shows a misunderstanding of how those companies add value to the author’s work. Even with all the negative press surrounding copyright law in the music industry the vast majority of artists still dream of signing with a record company because they know it is the easiest path to compensation. Let the record company produce and promote the album while the artist focuses on the music.
Note that artists today are free to produce outside the copyright system. However you would be hard pressed to find one that would turn down a deal with Sony in favor of self distribution.
“The real parasites are people like the pirate bay who made over a million off the work of others”
TPB never made a profit on their site, all the money they made on advertisement went directly into site maintainance. In fact the other day it was ruled that the admins wouldn’t be liable for the damages as they are broke.
I’m sorry, in this day and age publishers shouldn’t own the material produced by the artists. At best they should be considered investors, at worst they should just be consultants. Yeah, the artist works on the music which he does not own.
None of the artists would object to lyrics being posted on websites because they know that the more people know and appreciate the lyrics, the better it would be for them. Publishers seek squeeze the maximum possible payoff for anything.
Seeking more draconian rules, longer copyright extensions etc. does not encourage people to side with them. It is sad that they could just reduce (not remove) piracy by simply giving people what they want i.e. downloadable tv shows, films and music and making it easy to consume.
It is sad that the whole experience of consuming media is easier from piracy than it is from any “legal” service in that I can place shift, time shift, media shift and content appears promptly.
Why? So you can have access to free music? What if the artist wants the publisher to own the music? Maybe you don’t understand why artists want a record deal. It’s so they can make more money than they normally would if they did all the producing/marketing/distributing themselves. Artists are free to work within or outside of the copyright system. Most musicians however dream of a record deal. They don’t dream of having their music distributed without compensation.
So laws should not be supported if they aren’t convenient? Would you support a criminal who finds stealing to be more convenient than working?
No
It isn’t right, but it is just too easy. The media companies could make their lives easier by simply providing what the market demands. So they are simply bringing this upon themselves. I feel not one ounce of pity to those that disregard public opinion, research and just plain common sense and then feel that the only way to fix the problem is to make it worse by lobbying for more draconian laws whilst not providing legal alternatives.
Ultimately for me it means that I’ll just stop buying stuff from them as I tend to discover new stuff from things freely shared with others, which is really the way people discover and consume media in the 21st century.
so music companies are suing websites that provide song lyrics? f–kING DIE.