Copyright thoughts
Some people may think I am anti-copyright, but that is far from the case. I think copyright laws, and other intellectual property laws, are very important to a country and an economy.
However such laws are about a balance between creator and the public. With no such balance, there would be no ability to quote extracts of a written work, to record a TV show off the television, to tape a song off the radio etc.
I do think music companies should be able to take action against people who download music, to avoid paying for it. This is one reason I quite like the new S92A. Under the old Copyright Act, there was no cost effective way to take non-commercial infringers to court. The new S92A allows cases to be heard relatively cheaply by the Copyright Tribunal.
So it is a mistake to portray opponents of the old S92A (or those who scrutinise the ACTA treaty) as opposed to copyright. Sure a few people may fit into that category, but not the vast majority.
The biggest frustration I have is that business models are not changing quickly enough to take account of the Internet, and this is one reason why so many download works for free. I’ll give an example.
At a dinner on Friday night with the organisers of the Public ACTA conference, one of the organisers mentioned to me she had just purchased Leonard Maltin’s “151 Best Movies You Have Never Seen“.
Now most film goers will know who Leonard Maltin is – the God of reviewers. So I thought that sounds like a really good book.
But that then got me thinking about how one would go about seeing those 151 movies. By their nature, they are not top viewing ones, that you could easily pick up at the video store. There is no website in NZ where you could order them from. If you were really dedicated you could spend hours wading through Amazon locating them and pay $6,000 or so to buy them all individually, and wait a month or so for them to arrive. Oh yeah, would also need a cupboard to store them all in.
But in reality, what many people would do if they have that book, is go to a torrent site and search for a torrent of the films listed. Because that is the easiest and quickest way to do it.
But what if you could buy all 151 movies legally, easily and for an affordable price? Say the books costs you $25, but for an extra $250 you could also buy a 300 GB external hard drive with all 151 moves on it at Whitcoulls or Borders? Hell, I’d buy that as a xmas present for a loved one, and so would many other people I reckon.
April 12th, 2010 at 11:18 am
You can’t count yourself as a loved one.
April 12th, 2010 at 11:19 am
I just find it frustrating sometimes that Media companies are getting these types of copyright agreements however the consumer gets nothing out of them (E.g., I would be all for better copyright IF Itunes were allowed to sell TV shows in New Zealand, IF Hulu was avaliable in NZ and IF the TV channels here do not sit on a program they have brought for 2 years – just so that the other competition would not be able to show it). We live in the Internet age, the age of instant access.
April 12th, 2010 at 11:25 am
By their nature, they are not top viewing ones, that you could easily pick up at the video store. There is no website in NZ where you could order them from
Ever heard of fatso.co.nz?
[DPF: I was thinking order to buy]
April 12th, 2010 at 11:27 am
Now most film goers will know who Leonard Maltin is – the God of reviewers
I’m sorry – the what? Pauline Kael is the God of reviewers. Leonard Maltin is the Leonard Maltin of reviewers.
April 12th, 2010 at 11:31 am
Everyone tends to think of torrents as free, but they are far from it.
Instead of the $79.95/ month Phone package with 5GB of data, you need to spend $119.95/ month for 25GB of data. ($40 extra spent)
Then there is the extra hard drive at $150 or so.
Then there is the time spent finding torrents, downloading, realising they are bad quality and downloading another version. 2 hours a week @ $12.50 = $25 week = $100 month lost time.
That totals $150 start up cost and $140 monthly cost if you include time spent just to download free torrents. Even if the $100 time spent is over the top, it still shows there is a niche in the market that is not being filled.
Can someone suggest a $150 device that costs $40-$140 month to run that is legal and has the choice of bit-torrent?
Like SkyTv, but no averts, good TV shows, on-demand TV shows and twice the price?
April 12th, 2010 at 12:08 pm
From the other day:
Setting aside the issue of having your 1hr at Akl immigration become 5hrs (that, or keep the 1hr and sustain extra taxes for airport to hire an army of content police), does anyone really believe it’s possible to ban someone from using the internet? What planet are these people on?
April 12th, 2010 at 12:13 pm
Danyl.
Kael wrote for the New Yorker, and as such, wrote to an audience. She was scathing of certain films that have achieved legendary status among film audiences.
One wonders what she would have made of James Cameron.
April 12th, 2010 at 12:13 pm
Copyright right laws are just time consuming expensive foreplay in this ” It ” World.. when consumers can illegally gain instant access..
Why sell software to download things… if it is illegal to download with them..
and copyrights only apply to countries that enforce the laws..other countries don’t give a shit.
All you can really do is increase the fines for those illegally distributing.
Todays increasing consumer demands for cheap easy access to all things will keep increasing… even in other areas under copyright law.. along with the demand to give it to them free.
China if it wanted.. could flood the World with cheap and free everything to the West and put it into freeflow collapse.
April 12th, 2010 at 12:15 pm
Sifting through PCs is pretty fucked, thought PCs are personal computers?…..
Anyway, I would point people to Truecrypt, that software will certainly keep there noses out of your personal business, although it must be said though that thus far England at least has created laws pertained specifically the the capabilities of this software.
April 12th, 2010 at 12:18 pm
A timely thread, given that copyright law turned 300 years old on Saturday.
April 12th, 2010 at 12:26 pm
It pisses me off bigtime that when I record my own holiday etc on my own DVD format handycam, then want to copy it to my own video HDD I am barred from doing so because of copy protection. Instead I have to scrub it through the computer and re-burn… sigh.
I used to have the same problem with DAT recording of Whale Song years ago. Needed the exceptional bandwidth DAT offered but what a PITA doing backups were.
With this level of pimpled brained abuse of the consumer by the rule makers then I can’t imagine the mature leap in mindset ever happening needed to make my media convenient.
April 12th, 2010 at 3:53 pm
Truecrypt is one option, on Linux there are a bunch of very strong encryption options. I remember reading somewhere an interview with a police analyst on how they crack these sorts of encryption. He reckoned the most common way was to just ask the perp for their password – which they almost always gave up.
Tells me one of two things:
– perps who get caught are a self selecting bunch of stupid people (quite possible)
– we’re prosecuting people who think they’ve done nothing wrong, so they don’t mind giving up the password. Perhaps they had a bunch of pr0n that they thought was legal, so gave over the password, turned out it wasn’t all legal for whatever reason.
I only have one encrypted computer (for work data). Makes me wonder whether I should just encrypt all my machines, just to be safe. Problem is, if you’re not there to put the password in, the damn thing won’t auto boot after a power outage.
April 12th, 2010 at 4:18 pm
A 300 GB hard drive with 151 movies on it for $250?
Once you deduct the price of the drive you’d be paying well under a dollar per film.
You might as well just steal them frankly.
April 12th, 2010 at 6:49 pm
encryption, I say encrypt the lot, people don’t just leave there house unlocked and trust that while there away that nobody goes and snoops round there house, its not much different with windows systems really.
There is also software out to make it a lot harder for the eyes to see who is downloading what torrents, i havnt looked into this at all but have heard it mentioned a couple of times.
April 12th, 2010 at 7:27 pm
My recollection on torrents is something like:
– downloading isn’t a crime, as long as you don’t store? Something like that – so just seeing data streaming into your house isn’t enough unless it is also on your hard drive
– if the hard drive is encrypted, nobody can see it there
– uploading, however, is much more strongly controlled, and of course torrents are two way
Bottom line – I think it’s hard to hide too much on torrents. There are some encryption and obfuscation techniques out there, but most people I think are relying on the fact that it’s three strikes your out kind of stuff – if you haven’t had that first threatening letter, you’re safe to keep going.
That is probably why the corporates are so focused on nailing the first timers – otherwise it’s just too big a problem to police, and no credible threats to intimidate people with.
April 12th, 2010 at 7:43 pm
aha, i remember now, i now some poeple that have servers download there torrents to there servers and then just ftp them from there……
April 12th, 2010 at 8:04 pm
I would too David.
It is a good idea.
April 14th, 2010 at 4:09 pm
This story might also relate to this issue:
Buy a hard drive — get 21 movies free
LOS ANGELES — Paramount Pictures is exploring a new frontier by participating in an offer to sell hard drives with a copy of the latest Star Trek movie and 20 other films already on board.
The one-month offer, which both companies called an industry first, would combine a 500-gigabyte Seagate Technology hard drive with a free 2009 version of Star Trek for an online promotional price of US$100 ($140). An empty 500GB Seagate hard drive usually sells for US$140.
The other movies distributed by Paramount, including GI Joe, Nacho Libre and Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius come pre-loaded with a digital lock for which a code can be purchased online for US$10 to US$15 each. Even watching Star Trek requires registration.
The pre-loaded movies come with a Windows-based digital rights management system to prevent file sharing. This takes up about 50GB of the drive.
The special sale comes as Hollywood is struggling with falling DVD sales in the face of piracy and is looking for new ways to sell movies from its library. Other companies have used heavy discounts on DVDs to lure shoppers.
Both companies declined to say if they were taking a loss on the promotional price. Both could be using the offer as a way to lure buyers for other related products they’re selling.
Paramount, a unit of Viacom, is selling its other movie titles, while Seagate Technology is selling a device that enables movies stored on hard drives to be played on television sets for US$130.