this post was submitted on 13 May 2024
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*What rights do you have to the digital movies, TV shows and music you buy online? That question was on the minds of Telstra TV Box Office customers this month after the company announced it would shut down the service in June. Customers were told that unless they moved over to another service, Fetch, they would no longer be able to access the films and TV shows they had bought. *

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[–] DarkDarkHouse@lemmy.sdf.org 163 points 6 months ago (3 children)

Piracy is only illegal because we made it so. We can change that.

[–] lowleveldata@programming.dev 71 points 6 months ago (3 children)

I think what we should do is to have better non-piracy ways of owning things instead of "making piracy legal" (what does that even mean?)

[–] ElderWendigo@sh.itjust.works 47 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I think the more nuanced take is that we should be making "piracy" legal by expanding and protecting fair use and rights to make personal copies. There are lots of things that are called piracy now that really shouldn't be. Making "piracy" legal still leaves plenty of room for artists to get paid.

[–] Katana314@lemmy.world 7 points 6 months ago

Most people would be fine with this in the case of a home user duplicating one or two copies for his kids to watch and as backups. But we have seen whenever a rule permits something, someone will work out the MAXIMUM way in which they can abuse it for profit. Give them an inch, and they take a mile.

Ideally, we could have laws that are really finely built to be specific to that first scenario. But I honestly don't know how you write those.

[–] Zachariah@lemmy.world 11 points 6 months ago (1 children)
[–] localme@lemm.ee 3 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Thanks for sharing! I wish they had the date of publishing listed for this article. I get the feeling it was written 15 years ago, well before streaming music services existed. Would love to see them update this based on the latest technologies and services.

[–] nekusoul@lemmy.nekusoul.de 6 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Looking into the metadata of the included PDF version reveals that it's from 2004, so even a bit older than that.

[–] localme@lemm.ee 2 points 6 months ago

Wow good find using the pdf metadata!

[–] Zachariah@lemmy.world 3 points 6 months ago

The EFF’s concept was from the Napster days, but I think this was written later on.

[–] KISSmyOSFeddit@lemmy.world 3 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I want to see a world where content creators are simply paid by the hour, while they work. Why do they get to still make money off their work 70 years after they died?

Yes, it would probably mean that billion-dollar-movies aren't viable anymore, and most YouTubers couldn't live off their videos, but I see that as a good thing.

[–] Railcar8095@lemm.ee 12 points 6 months ago

want to see a world where content creators are simply paid by the hour, while they work.

Do you? Because that's how game developers get their ideas crushed in favor of yet another game as a service that nobody asked for but makes stock holders happy.

And for alternative creators, who would pay? Do they need to be churning content as a job and not because they are inspired?

I get the idea, it's just that seems hard to pull off

[–] gedaliyah@lemmy.world 12 points 6 months ago (2 children)

How do you change that without completely stripping property rights away from artists though? Not just corporate IP, but all artists?

[–] WamGams@lemmy.ca 25 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Piracy doesn't take money from artists, just ask Cory Doctorow, a person making their living as a writer while uploading the torrents of his novels himself.

Corporate consolidation is what kills the artists. The studios make less movies per year, so the a list actors go to television and take the roles Rob Morrow used to get.

[–] gedaliyah@lemmy.world 8 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Is it fine for a billion dollar company to ripoff smaller artists? It's a form of piracy, so this would be allowed, too.

[–] PipedLinkBot@feddit.rocks 1 points 6 months ago

Here is an alternative Piped link(s):

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[–] grue@lemmy.world 13 points 6 months ago

That's the neat part: you don't have to, because copyright was never a property right to begin with.

First, not only are ideas not property, they're pretty much exactly the opposite of it. I'll let Thomas Jefferson himself explain this one:

It has been pretended by some (and in England especially) that inventors have a natural and exclusive right to their inventions; & not merely for their own lives, but inheritable to their heirs. but while it is a moot question whether the origin of any kind of property is derived from nature at all, it would be singular to admit a natural, and even an hereditary right to inventions. it is agreed by those who have seriously considered the subject, that no individual has, of natural right, a separate property in an acre of land, for instance. by an universal law indeed, whatever, whether fixed or moveable, belongs to all men equally and in common, is the property, for the moment, of him who occupies it; but when he relinquishes the occupation the property goes with it. stable ownership is the gift of social law, and is given late in the progress of society. it would be curious then if an idea, the fugitive fermentation of an individual brain, could, of natural right, be claimed in exclusive and stable property. if nature has made any one thing less susceptible, than all others, of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an Idea; which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the reciever cannot dispossess himself of it. it’s peculiar character too is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. he who recieves an idea from me, recieves instruction himself, without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, recieves light without darkening me.

Second, a copyright isn't a right, either; it's a privilege. Consider the Copyright Clause: it is one of the enumerated powers of Congress, giving Congress the authority to issue temporary monopolies to creators, for the sole and express purpose "to promote the progress of science and the useful arts." Note that that's a power, not an obligation, and the purpose is not "because the creator is entitled to it" or anything similar to that.

Besides, think of it this way: if copyright were actually a property right, the fact that it expires would be unconstitutional under the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment. But it does expire, so it clearly isn't a property right.

[–] jabjoe@feddit.uk 2 points 6 months ago

Also depends on the country. It isn't everywhere. Non-commercial file-sharing is legal in a number of European countries and I'm sure elsewhere.

It could be taken as a sign of the health of the democracy's function and technically literacy of the population. In a society of tech heads with a highly functional democracy, it would be DRM measures that would be illegal.....