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Writers Guild of Canada on Digital Locks in C-32

The Writers Guild of Canada posts its views on Bill C-32.  While I disagree with several of its positions, it is good to see a writer’s group be honest about the impact of digital locks:

The only option that Bill C-32 offers creators is digital locks, which freezes current revenue streams for creators, and creates an illogical loophole in the copyright Bill by taking away the very rights the Bill grants to consumers in its other sections. Digital locks may work for software but they are not forward thinking and they are not popular with consumers. Digital locks are not a substitute for a clear revenue stream for creators.

44 Comments

  1. Yay! Someone gets it!

  2. How I read that is that the writer’s guild wants there to be additional protections to copyrighted works, and not simply digital locks. I’m not sure how that could possibly be any better… and in fact, could easily be even worse.

  3. @Mark
    Well the part that Geist bolded hints at disapproval of the digital locks clause… Also that they state digital locks are not popular with consumers…

  4. The interesting stuff…
    …is this:

    “It grants new uses (backing up, time-shifting, private copying) to consumers without any form of compensation to creators for the additional copying.”

    They promote the idea that you have to pay each time you USE the material. While traditionally you were paying UPFRONT at purchase time, the price covering any future personal use (which includes backup and format adjustment).

    I think it is high time to make it clear once for all what exactly are they selling to you. A product (copy) that you can use as you see fit (inside your household)? Or a license to use that material in certain ways?

    Any further discussion without clearing this point is deemed to fail.

    Nap.


  5. …just to add that this sounds like “pay-as-you-go” schemes. Where you buy the book/CD/movie, and then you pay more every time you use it. Transfer it to iPod? Pay. Made backup copy? Pay. Watch it on your laptop? Pay. etc.

    How about we completely move to a rental scheme, since that is what it is. But I want to see the price reflecting this. Don’t “sell” me the CD at $29 if actually it’s a rental / pay per view thing.

    Nap.

  6. I’m just happy that there’s a creator’s group out there who realize that the TPM protections are not something that’s really needed and kind of illogical. The rest of their position I can understand, but at the same time I don’t necessarily agree with it.

  7. Sorry guys
    OTOH if they think that the ability to backup/time-shift/format-shift increases the value of the material when in digital format, why don’t they just increase the asking price for the digital materials? They don’t need no law for that:

    Book, printed: $29
    Book, electronic edition: $39 (and you’re free to backup it all day long)

    Which brings us to the point that backups are not needed for printed books, as the support is much more resilient. And the fact that you backup digital material is actually needed as a correction of a flaw of this format – it can easily get corrupted.

    Nap.


  8. Nap said:
    “I think it is high time to make it clear once for all what exactly are they selling to you. A product (copy) that you can use as you see fit (inside your household)? Or a license to use that material in certain ways?”

    They really don’t want to make that distinction. They want you to THINK you’re getting something, when in all reatity, you’re getting nothing. If they come out and say they want the latter, that is a licensing issue that requires no legislation and even the most blind, moron of a politician should be able to see it’s no longer a copyright issue. I think licensing would be even less popular with consumer than digital locks. But it’s really hand-in-hand isn’t it, digital locks in copyright gives them the power to trump ALL fair use, so it’s really paramount to a license.

    “How about we completely move to a rental scheme, since that is what it is. But I want to see the price reflecting this. Don’t “sell” me the CD at $29 if actually it’s a rental / pay per view thing.”

    Agreed!!! Of course, the issue with that is that there are a lot of areas of Canada that still don’t have the Internet infrastructure to really support such a scheme. I know I often have problems streaming even regular youtube let alone anything HD…quite often I resort to downloading the videos (Mostly movie trailers and music videos) with GetIt and watching them offline. So they would have to either upgrade the infratructure or effectively say those in rural or remote areas are second-rate and don’t matter as much as those in major centers. They would also have to force ISPs to upgrade Internet plans nation-wide to allow the required bandwidth. I know I buy far more content in HD on BluRay in a month that I could even begin to download with my account.

  9. Backups
    The best solution for such things is user accounts. Services like Steam and eMusic track everything you purchase and allow you to redownload it at no charge if, for whatever reason, it becomes lost. Other services, like Napster do not. I purchased an album from there last week and one of the songs didn’t download and I had to spend 45 minutes on the phone with them before they would admit anything was wrong and even then, they had to give a one song credit instead of just allowing a download. For everything else I have it backed up to multiple RAIDed drives so if a drive is lost or corrupted I still have other copies. To lose all my music, I would need 6 drives on three separate boxes to all fail all at the same time…or have a fire, though I have most of the purchased stuff backed up at work as well.

  10. Questions that need answers
    Although I don’t agree with many points it does pose many questions that should be addressed in C-32. Specifically definitions. Mashups was an example. If it were to go to court how would it be decided if it met the C-32 criteria?


  11. @IanME: “They really don’t want to make that distinction. They want you to THINK you’re getting something, when in all reatity, you’re getting nothing.”

    That’s exactly what I suspected all the time. “Here you can buy this movie for $29 it’s all yours”. “Great, now how do I watch it on my iPad?”. “Sorry, you can’t do that, the product was licensed not sold”. “Huh, you mean it’s not mine? Than what did I pay for?”. “For my Christmas bonus. Now if you pay us more we’ll let you watch it on your iPad. You sucker….”

    Let’s say it again. The necessity to backup / time-shift / format-shift are not ADVANTAGES of digital formats. They correct ISSUES with this format.

    Issues that do not exist with lets say traditional printed books. You don’t need no format-shift as you can read it as long as you can see. There’s no technology change every 3-4 years that will prevent you to read the book (like in digital formats).

    And these guys want to charge MORE for letting you FIX ISSUES?

    Duh. “Here’s your nice car Sir, except it comes standard with square wheels, but for a fee we’ll let you change them with round ones.”

    Nap.

  12. Ahaaa!
    @IanME: “If they come out and say they want the latter, that is a licensing issue that requires no legislation and even the most blind, moron of a politician should be able to see it’s no longer a copyright issue.”

    Now I think you’re realley on something here. If it’s licensed not sold, then it’s solely governed by the license.

    But then if it’s licensed why the product is not displaying this (and the license terms) in a visible place.

    Example. I’m looking right now at two boxes – Microsoft Office 2010 Home and Student edition and The Tudors Season One on Blu-Ray.

    The software box mentions clearly “LICENSED for installation on up to 3 home PC’s. Not for use in any commercial, nonprofit… etc.” You can read this clearly on the box before you cut the shrinkwrap. And as soon as you try to install it you’ll get an “End User License Agreement” displayed that you can read before accepting it and “activating” the product. There’s plenty of information for you to know that it’s licensed not sold.

    Now “The Tudors”. There’s absolutely no mention to a “license” on the box. Not the front, not the back. Even after you open it, there’s still no mention to any “license” inside. And even after you insert the disk and play it, there’s no “EULA” displayed for you to read. So how exactly could I know that it was licensed not sold to me? For all what I can tell, it was SOLD.

    If these guys want to LICENSE stuff, they should have the obligation to inform you of that in a visible, understandable manner. And give you the opportunity to agree or not to the licensing terms. Exactly like the software industry is doing.

    And as a side note. I can see on “The Tudors” the notice “Produced with the support of investment incentives of the Irish Film Industry provided by the Government of Ireland”. I can also see the Ontario logo and the CBC one. So did the artists and creators get some help from taxpayers money? I guess so. Did they get the full asking price from the consumer too? I guess so, I have the original disks in front of me and they were bought from a reputable store. And they still say that it’s not enough and want levies on blank media and other “additional revenue streams”? C’mon guys. Enough is enough.

    Nap.

  13. And in other news, the underworld is a experiencing a cold front …
    It is nice to see that ‘some’ writers are able to understand the illogical stance of Bill C-32 on digital locks, and kudos to them for coming out and saying it.

    Now to paying for said fair uses, that is more of a complex issue, one that may belong in licensing over legislation. The CD levy as I understand it is meant, among other things, to compensate for format shifting which I might possibly consider if it was implemented and valued correctly, but on the other hand a backup should not have any charges attributed to it at all. In many of the public’s eyes the CD levy has meant it is OK to ‘file share’ with other people. I do not think this was the intention but it has become the perception.

    So in all, we have differing views and perceptions from the different sides. I will even be so gracious as to agree with John that there is some need for ‘clear legislative guidance’ although it may actually belong more in the licencing realm between the creator and the consumer.

    So, do we have the fair use rights included in the up front purchase or not? If not what are we buying, the right to only use the format we purchase, no right to backup the less durable [than physical] digital format? Do we own the media or rent it? It is certainly unclear and the expectations from creators and consumers seems to wildly differ. It would be good to work this out and in doing so we may have to revisit established systems and levels of compensation.

    But once again, the digital locks as envisioned in C-32 does not make sense and I am so very pleased to see a creator group come out and admit this. Now we can actually have some productive discussions and work towards some amiable solutions.


  14. @Crockett: “The CD levy as I understand it is meant, among other things, to compensate for format shifting which I might possibly consider if it was implemented and valued correctly, but on the other hand a backup should not have any charges attributed to it at all.”

    The irony is that the “format shifting” need arises as a consequence of exactly DRM. In an ideal world you wouldn’t need to “format shift”, as all devices would be interoperable. You don’t need to “format shift” printed books but you would need to if you want to read a Kindle e-book on your laptop. Breaking DRM in the process of course and becoming a “radical extremist pirate”.

    So we first remove interoperability via DRM, than charge extra for achieving it.

    How convenient. Nice scam guys.

    Coming back to software industry example. Microsoft doesn’t care HOW I install Office. I can first “take a backup of the installation DVD” then I can “format shift” the DVD into an USB memory key because the target PC doesn’t have a DVD reader.

    So why is “the industry” concerned exactly by HOW I am watching the damn movie?

    Nap.


  15. “So why is “the industry” concerned exactly by HOW I am watching the damn movie?”

    Because they want you to buy it multiple times!!! And Hell will freeze over before I will succumb to that. As I’ve said many times, a law which bans breaking digital locks for legal uses garners no respect and will become an unenforcible law no one follows.


  16. @IanME: “Because they want you to buy it multiple times!!! ”

    Then just freakin’ do it:

    “The Tudors” Standard Edition, Blu-Ray playback only, $59

    “The Tudors” Extended Edition, includes iPod and PC/Mac video formats, $89.

    Nap.


  17. BAH!! I have little kids (2 and 5), I’m so far behind on TV, I just wait for things to hit the bargain bin now. LOL For movies, it when they release, “The Director’s Cut”, “The Extended Director’s Cut”, “Ultimate Edition”, “Diamond Edition”, etc, etc, etc. That really gets my goat. And I used to be very susceptible to it. I have 3 or 4 copies of the 1978 “Dawn of the Dead”…different editions. I’m not so keen as I once was. With BluRay, I’ve at least showed some constraint and have only replaced 3 or 4 DVDs with BluRay copies…mind you, the cost is quite preventative there.

    For books, I still prefer a hard-copy and will probably stick to hard copies as long as they’re available.


  18. @IanME: “BAH!!”

    I actually wholeheartedly recommend you “The Tudors” in Blu-Ray, it is amazing and only Full HD can pay it justice. It also puts Hollywood to shame in so many ways. Makes you a proud Canuck.

    The final season should be out this month, together with “Complete seasons” boxes.

    For this one I would agree with 200 lashes and extended stoning in the public market for those that upload crappy stamp-sized ripoffs on P2P networks. It is a shame to see it other than in original quality.

    Nap.

  19. Still too confusing.
    @Napalm & IamME

    The ‘levy’ system is just another way of licensing different uses of the media, at least that’s the way it is designed. A more efficient and honest way would be to include that in the original price, but then they would need to make that up front and obvious to the purchaser which doesn’t look good for them. The systems as is though is just confusing and causes misunderstandings. Bill C-32 does address this or many other inconsistencies.

    Something has to change.

  20. Typo!
    Should have read .. “Bill C-32 does NOT address this or many other inconsistencies.”

  21. john walker says:

    Actually pulling the swifty of; Rewriting the sale contract after you have paid for the product is exactly what the copyright industry is all about.
    If the market really knows what you can and cant do with a product ,the market will set prices accordingly. The advantage to them of changing the terms after you pay is: You get less than you paid for and they get more than its really worth.

  22. A consumers perspective on the writer’s guild asks …
    Listed below are the ‘asks’ of the writers guild for the C-32 review committee. I will respond with a (my) consumer’s perspective.

    @WGC • Extend private copying to all works on all distribution and storage devices – screenwriters would not directly benefit from this until authorship of the a/v work is appropriately defined in the Copyright Act but at least the door would not be locked shut.

    @Crockett – If I understand what they are saying is all type of artistic works should fall under the umbrella of private copying not just the current ones. Well from a fairness and balance point of view that seems reasonable, but notwithstanding the validity of the private copying concept itself.

    @WGC • Remove the digital mashup provision – far too open.

    @Crockett – This begs the question if making common acceptable practices by the public illegal as being an effective or wise position. Also mashups, in my experience, often lead to exposure and interest for the original work. It may be best to leave this exemption in as it is going to happen anyways and I think has a fairly high positive effect for the creators, more so than free file sharing anyways. I do understand the complaint that YouTube is making advertising money with the main source being other people works and am not against YouTube and other similar vehicles having some sort of revenue sharing agreement. But to outright ban mashups .. not gonna work.

    @WGC • Narrow the scope of the “private purposes” exemption.

    @Crockett – This is probably the biggest area where we would disagree. From a consumer’s perspective if I buy something I own it and use it as I see fit. This should NOT include giving it to someone else and thus possibly denying a sale. BUT if I purchase media and want to watch it on my ipod, computer, DVD and certainly if I want to make a backup [Books are durable, digital media is much less so, there should be allowances for that], then that falls in my concept of fair use. If creators don’t want people sharing with others, then I’m fine with that, but they should concede on the private use demands.

    @GWC • Pair stronger infringement penalties (statutory damages) with collective licensing mechanisms that make licenced use easy. This will encourage legal use.

    @Crockett – This is so the wrong approach it pains me to even have to repeat myself yet again. Stronger penalties will create greater infringement. No question. People seeing ‘Big Business’ tightening the thumb screws and pulling out the whip will only create more of a us vs. them culture. It would go SO much better to instead offer greater fair use exemptions to bring back the good will that has all but evaporated in the heat of the **AA scorched earth strategies. If you want to continue to see greater piracy and disrespect for your industry then go ahead down this road .. to the peril of your bottom line and ultimately your demise.

    @GWC • Define “education” more narrowly in fair dealing provision.

    @Crockett – There are legal principles and checks that apply to all cases of fair dealing, not just the newly recommended education category. If the GWC first request was to apply a proposed levy to all private copying, then should the other side of the coin not be applying fair use to all types of media? This is the ‘have the cake and eat it too’ mentality that seems to pervade both camps of this debate. Consumers what ‘free’ use of everything and creators want to make them pay for everything. Not much common ground there. Both sides will have to give a little if there is ever going to be a solution.

    Bottom line – Three easy points, one big implementation headache.
    1) Creators should be able to earn a reasonable amount for their works.
    2) Consumers should be allowed some freedom in how they personally use those works.
    3) Works should not be given away for free without the permission of the creator.

    And finally, my 2 cents … creators should take this paradigm shift in the media industry to explore and utilize new opportunities for greater profits (both in scale and percentage kept) instead of relying on analog business models in a digital world.

    Good Luck.

  23. …I wonder…
    Is C-32 retroactive? Will it apply to all the content I purchased over the last 10 years? Do my current “copies” become illegal?

    In regards to fixing copyright and the private copying levy, I wholey agree with Crockett that a heavy-handed approach will do no good other than to create resentment, causing more infringement. I wrote something similar in another thread…

    Unfortunately, very little can be done. They shut down Napster and a half a dozen services popped up in it’s place. They sued 10s of thousands of people and infringement still increased. They will shut down “The Pirate Bay” and ISOHunt and the like and something else, bigger, better and more secure will come along in it’s place…until the security gets to the point that it becomes untraceable. Believe me, as a programmer and computer expert, I can tell you this is NOT far off. There are already services, in their infancy, offering such functionality. All the laws in the world won’t help when this becomes the norm. With Azureus you can put the traffic through the Tor network. It would make it virtually untraceable, but it will also make it incredibly slow…speed will increase as the number of Tor users increase. Heavy-handed draconian laws will not do a lick of good, if people want they will find a way to get it…period.

    In regards to levies I don’t like them, but the more I think about it, the more I find myself thinking that all-out removing them at such a “tender” stage in our copyright revamp to be a bad idea. C-32 does nothing to help actual artists…nadda, nill, zippo, NOTHING!! Many artists have come to rely on this levy as an “off season” source of income, when they’re writting/recording/etc. and cutting it off cold turkey might cause more harm than good.

    The ONLY thing the industry can do to is try to get the respect of the consumer back. If the consumer respects the product and industry, they will be more likely buy the product. If they don’t achieve this before widespread anonymity becomes the norm, they might as well give up because at that point they will never be able to compete with “free without fear of consequences”.

  24. boushofe
    I also want to clarify that I am not completely against extra revenue generated from some consumer activities. But in my opinion, what is allowed and being charged for should be clear up front at the point of sale and probably included in that initial sale price.

    Backups – This should not be monetized at all. Digital media is much more susceptible to damage and loss than physical media and thus a backup provision should be free.

    Time Shifting – If I watch it now or later, what is the difference? Did I get charged for taping on my VCR? Then why should I get charged for recording on a DVR? Commercial skips you say? Well, that is a point but I have been skipping the commercials ever since the bathroom was invented.

    Format shifting – Here I see some small leverage, but I repeat it should be small in a monetary sense. I see format shifting as a convenience, and in life we often pay for that. But it is also a expectation that this be allowed and by locking such activities behind digital locks to more fully monetize it later (not to prevent piracy as is so often touted) is the opposite of convenience. I think fair use should be recognized and TPM done away with. The purchase price should either include or allow different formats of the purchased media, then people would be more likely to buy than infringe. If locks and litigation is the way the industry keeps going then people will continue to infringe and not buy. There is no going back to the old analog physical format days, best to make the best of the situation and court favor over animosity.

  25. ?? boushofe
    That should have read clarification. Some weird error there.

  26. john walker says:

    IamME
    I could be wrong, (it is not meant to be easy to understand) Mr Geist is the lawyer
    But As best as I can understand it,
    currently copyright contracts can include things that are not clearly down in writing. there are ‘regulated uses’ that are in ‘the contract’ and then there are ‘unregulated uses’, fair uses’ and ‘free uses’ And these uses are not all the same.
    Exactly what copyright is ,has over the past fifty years, become very confused.

  27. is belong to us
    Getting one thing right doesn’t compensate for getting so much wrong.

    “Remove the digital mashup provision – far too open.” -WGC

    And here’s your proof they’re still clinging to the past. Your lawyers need to open their eyes; mashups are created and uploaded every minute of the day. This is the first time I’ve defended Bill C-32. If you want to be compensated for these mashups well that’s great just don’t attempt to quash something entirely just because it out evolved your business models. The WGC and other groups blame youtube, I think that’s hilarious. Oh no, youtube and other sites are stealin our copyrights, hide ur kids , hide ur wifez cause they rapin everybody up here.

  28. john walker says:

    IamMe

    Transaction Levies go in the opposite direction to copyright.
    Because they are generally distributed through some sort of ‘circle of peers’ process they inevitably favor the well established ,the typical and quickly become completely circular.

    Our Australian Music collective industry has just had its annual ARIA awards . The ceremony has been roundly slammed, the reason was ‘ it was like watching a A list party to which you have not been invited’.
    Monopolies and transaction levies do make you take your audience for granted.

  29. “3) Works should not be given away for free without the permission of the creator.”

    Exactly! No one should be giving CDs/DVDs for Christmas, birthdays, etc…

    Stop spreading the word and spreading fan base.

  30. Not really copyright issue
    C32 has a lot less to do with enforcing copyrights against individuals and a lot more to do with controlling distribution. Even if things like open distribution or p2p become more profitable they will fight it, because there is more money to be made through licensing and contracts with distribution networks.

    They aren’t trying to protect copyright holders. They are trying to save the middle man.

  31. @lilB: I think you’ve hit the nail on the head with that one.

    However, just because it’s not for copyright holders does not mean it is not in the copyright holder’s interests. The “middle men” that are trying to control the distribution of the work were given authority to do so *by* the copyright holder. So it does still trace down to the copyright holder’s interests eventually. It’s just not direct.

  32. @john walker
    “Our Australian Music collective industry has just had its annual ARIA awards . The ceremony has been roundly slammed, the reason was ‘ it was like watching a A list party to which you have not been invited’.
    Monopolies and transaction levies do make you take your audience for granted.”

    I’m not saying I like the levies or even agree with the levies. If fact, I’ve been very vocally against levies. All I’m saying is that many artists have become reliant on it, like low income families on wellfare. Cutting the levy off cold turkey with no other plan than “the new system will just work”, when anyone with a half a brain knows it’s doomed to fail, will cause a lot of pain for many of these artists. We’ve created this culture in Canada where we support our artists even if they cannot support themselves.

    Like any other job I personally think artists should be able to support themselves without government intervention. If they can’t then, God forbid, they should have to take a “real” job to suppliment their income. Even a lot of well established, top earning musicians have other jobs. Take Iron Maiden for example. They’re one of the best selling metal bands in history with global sales of nearly 100 million albums. Bruce Dickenson, the singer, in his younger days, was a competitive fencer, he now runs a successful fencing equipment company…AND when he’s not touring with Iron Maiden, he’s an airline pilot for Astraeus Air in the UK. Tom Cato Visnes, better known as the “King ov Hell”, is a musician best known as the ex-bassist from the black metal band Gorgoroth. He’s a grade-school teacher in his “off time”. Another famous school teacher who maintained his job along side performing career was William James Myers, perhaps better known by his WWF stage name of “George ‘The Animal’ Steele”. The point is that celbrities/performer/artists/etc. shouldn’t rely and shouldn’t be allowed to rely, on government feebies to survive.

    What’s someone like Avril Lavigne going to do when she’s no longer finacially viable. Hopefully she’s got someone on her payrole handling her money properly and putting a lot of money away since she didn’t even finish high school…some role-model…and my tax dollars from the levy go straight in to her pocket. So no, I don’t like the levy and the loss will not be felt by someone like Avril, but smaller artists who really do rely on it will be those hurt the most.

  33. Craig Hubley says:

    the bill is DOA because it’s technically infeasible and will be ignored by consumers; try the radio model
    We sure do waste a lot of time with technically incompetent government officials listening to lobbyists or lawyers who are also technically incompetent. The main argument against the bill is that it cannot work.

    Actually arguing about it pretends that it is relevant to consumer action, which it isn’t. To me anything that prevents someone honestly admitting what’s on their hard drives and negotiating a fair price for the actual use made of it, is in the way of the ultimate solution which is voluntary payments for extra perks and features that are too much of a pain to pirate, and access to entertainments that others do not see – in other words I subscribe to Coldplay or Darren Aronofsky or Joss Whedon and my payoff is that there’s a two-way communication possible. Paying for copies of individual works is pretty much a dead concept.

    Extra revenue generated from some consumer activities should be pretty limited. Putting in context what has happened in the latter half of the 20th century, it used to be that one-time use of media was the rule, that is, we saw it on TV and heard it on radio. Sales of copies were from time to time the way that minority media were distributed (including the great music of the first half of the 20th century) and that includes player piano rolls and sheet music but for most popular culture one paid for performances (movies, concerts) and advertising paid for broadcast media. Obviously digital media makes that quite a different playing field because control of individual copies is impractical and will always be impractical (not my opinion, a provable axiom and historical fact that all DRM/lock schemes have been easily broken and digital copies easy to distribute). No need to look any further than the Gnutella2 and ED2K network for what the post-bittorrent post-Gnutella world looks like. And after that, TOR hidden wikis and so on…

    I agree that “what is allowed and being charged for should be clear up front at the point of sale and probably included in that initial sale price.” If the consumer voluntarily chooses a crippled cheap copy, fine, let them. But backups cannot be monetized at all, technically, as “digital media is much more susceptible to damage and loss than physical media and thus a backup provision should be free.” There is no chance whatsoever that backup software can be made cognizant of the many incompetent “locks”. If nothing else the poor quality of DRM coding guarantees interference and failure of almost all backups!

    Time shifting likewise is problematic, we don’t get charged for VCR taping even though we could also skip commercials (I have seen children of 22 months do this – they call the remote control “the FF” and use it exclusively for this) including via “bathroom break”.

    Format shifting (or transcoding) seems also to be absolutely essential as a basic right to make the media useful in all present and future configurations. Most owners of digital media boxes could not tell you what exact formats they play or even if/when they are transcoding. FFmpeg, UPnP, etc., make this hard to discover. If Light Peak replaces HDMI/DisplayPort you can guarantee the end of end-to-end controls…

    Perhaps we are best off going back to the radio model: fixed percentage payments for people playing well defined roles in the creation, using data collected by statistical sampling means. It’s really not hard to see whose files are being most downloaded online, even in networks where all the nodes are obscured.

  34. Craig Hubley says:

    charge a fee per terabyte
    We sure do waste a lot of time with technically incompetent government officials listening to lobbyists or lawyers who are also technically incompetent. The main argument against the bill is that it cannot work.

    Actually arguing about it pretends that it is relevant to consumer action, which it isn’t. To me anything that prevents someone honestly admitting what’s on their hard drives and negotiating a fair price for the actual use made of it, is in the way of the ultimate solution which is voluntary payments for extra perks and features that are too much of a pain to pirate, and access to entertainments that others do not see – in other words I subscribe to Coldplay or Darren Aronofsky or Joss Whedon and my payoff is that there’s a two-way communication possible. Paying for copies of individual works is pretty much a dead concept.

    Perhaps we are best off going back to the radio model: fixed percentage payments for people playing well defined roles in the creation, using data collected by statistical sampling means. It’s really not hard to see whose files are being most downloaded online, even in networks where all the nodes are obscured.

    Or simply vary the old optical disc model: Charge a fee on all digital media including hard drives and if someone cares to run an audit program (incorporated into an antivirus regime or something) that checks for licensing of all software and audio and video and PDFs and whatever else, they can get a refund of the fee paid on that drive. So you pay an extra $20 per terabyte and get $4 back for each year that it has no pirated media on it, or if you can prove you’re using it in some corporate database application, you can get the whole $20 back.

    Given the price of terabytes is going down all the time one can hardly claim that having it go down a bit slower to pay the people whose works are filling up the drive is specious. We charge e-waste fees now on electronics so what’s wrong with paying a pirate fee that we can get back if we prove we arrrrrrren’t?

    Few of us are out there generating terabytes of original works, so this seems like the best model to me.

  35. Craig Hubley says:

    charge a fee per terabyte when someone buys a hard drive, then pay it back as they prove they use it legally
    We sure do waste a lot of time with technically incompetent government officials listening to lobbyists or lawyers who are also technically incompetent. The main argument against the bill is that it cannot work.

    Or simply vary the old optical disc model: Charge a fee on all digital media including hard drives and if someone cares to run an audit program (incorporated into an antivirus regime or something) that checks for licensing of all software and audio and video and PDFs and whatever else, they can get a refund of the fee paid on that drive. So you pay an extra $20 per terabyte and get $4 back for each year that it has no pirated media on it, or if you can prove you’re using it in some corporate database application, you can get the whole $20 back.

    Given the price of terabytes is going down all the time one can hardly claim that having it go down a bit slower to pay the people whose works are filling up the drive is specious. We charge e-waste fees now on electronics so what’s wrong with paying a pirate fee that we can get back if we prove we arrrrrrren’t?

    Few of us are out there generating terabytes of original works, so this seems like the best model to me.

  36. Craig Hubley says:

    charge a fee per terabyte when someone buys a hard drive, then pay it back as they prove they use it legally
    Or simply vary the old optical disc model: Charge a fee on all digital media including hard drives and if someone cares to run an audit program (incorporated into an antivirus regime or something) that checks for licensing of all software and audio and video and PDFs and whatever else, they can get a refund of the fee paid on that drive. So you pay an extra $20 per terabyte and get $4 back for each year that it has no pirated media on it, or if you can prove you’re using it in some corporate database application, you can get the whole $20 back.

    Given the price of terabytes is going down all the time one can hardly claim that having it go down a bit slower to pay the people whose works are filling up the drive is specious. We charge e-waste fees now on electronics so what’s wrong with paying a pirate fee that we can get back if we prove we arrrrrrren’t?

    Few of us are out there generating terabytes of original works, so this seems like the best model to me.

  37. john walker says:

    @IamME
    Iam an artist myself and politically am a liberal conservative, i am not at all interested in radical change for the sake of it. These levies have been in place for decades, and the argument that we should give them ‘a bit longer to adjust’ is wearing a bit thin. These levies impose significant Ant-competitive transaction costs on the whole of society and the main beneficiary of these schemes is the management , not artists.

  38. @john walker
    I’m all for getting rid of the levies since I’ve never agreed with them to begin with. That’s just that much more money I can spend on movies….my entertainment drug of choice. But our government is trying to replace the levies, which at least helps some artists, with C-32, a law that if passed in it’s current form is doomed to be a complete failure and absolutely does no good for any artists at all while at the same time strips away all consumer rights.

  39. john walker says:

    IamME
    As a child there was a nursery rhyme called ‘Poor old lady she swallowed a fly’ Do you know it? Virtually all current attempts to deal with copyright law are taking place at a secondary instrumentalist level, so of course it gos round and round in ever diminishing circles- endlessly trying to efficiently implement things that at a design level make no sense.

    Laws are made by society ,we are ALL members of the collection society called legitimate elected government.
    At the primary level (of the whole of society) what is copyright for ? This is the question that is not being asked nearly often enough.

  40. john walker says:

    IamMe
    “that’s just that much more money I can spend on movies….my entertainment drug of choice.” That is exactly the point these levies are effectively protective tariffs that protect uncompetitive sub branches of cultural industries. From a public interest point of view two questions come to mind, Firstly in a democracy should government interfere with culture? And secondly is it worth

  41. Craig Hubley says:

    charge a fee per terabyte when someone buys a hard drive, then pay it back as they prove they use it legally
    Or simply vary the old optical disc model: Charge a fee on all digital media including hard drives and if someone cares to run an audit program (incorporated into an antivirus regime or something) that checks for licensing of all software and audio and video and PDFs and whatever else, they can get a refund of the fee paid on that drive. So you pay an extra $20 per terabyte and get $4 back for each year that it has no pirated media on it, or if you can prove you’re using it in some corporate database application, you can get the whole $20 back.

    Given the price of terabytes is going down all the time one can hardly claim that having it go down a bit slower to pay the people whose works are filling up the drive is specious. We charge e-waste fees now on electronics so what’s wrong with paying a pirate fee that we can get back if we prove we arrrrrrren’t?

    Few of us are out there generating terabytes of original works, so this seems like the best model to me.

  42. Here’s some thoughts …
    @GWC – “Others are profiting from the reuse of work we created (iPod manufacturers, flash drive manufacturers, PVR manufacturers, etc). This Bill benefits consumers, it benefits the manufacturers of digital storage and distribution devices,”

    I was thinking about the argument that device manufactures are benefiting from the content that is used on them. Well, this is true but what does that have to do with anything? A manufactured car uses fuel to fulfill it’s purpose, does car company owe the fuel manufacturer anything for this privilege? Then why would the iPod manufacturer owe the media company? This is a just rough parallel but food for thought.

    On another note, putting levies on multi use devices such as memory sticks, or even hard drives makes no sense at all as it assumes these devices will be used for media shifting. How can you determine that? Even single use devices such as Ipods might only be used with directly paid for media. Which is why I think there should be no restrictions of use of media (shifting/backup/mashups) and just include those costs in the initial purchase price of the media. Now admittedly, this is not that much of a better solution as it still assumes others uses will occur, but more fair than taxing a device that may have NO relation to media use at all. At least if I am buying media there is some reasonable expectation that it will be shifted, so make that a up front right of the initial sale. Now, there is no limit on how the media may be used, no more take down notices or customers being sued.

    This will not stop or encourage file sharing which is another issue entirely. TPM (digital locks) were never intended for or effective in stopping piracy so let’s just stop pretending so and get rid of them. Since the extra income for media shifting is included in the first sale it is tied directly to the original work and that income will go to the creator/producer of said work instead of a obscurely distributed collective fund.

    What do you folks think?

  43. @ Crockett
    “On another note, putting levies on multi use devices such as memory sticks, or even hard drives makes no sense at all as it assumes these devices will be used for media shifting.”

    I agree. This was my initial argument against putting levies on blank CDs and DVDs since I far more often used them for backup storage than creating copies of media. It was exclusively backup for DVDs, the only video DVDs I’ve ever made are videos of my kids for our parents. Not that I didn’t create audio CDs, but not nearly as often, perhaps one out of every 50 blanks….if that. I’ve never copied a commercial DVD to another DVD. If I do copy a commercial DVD, it’s to an ISO on my computer or to an AVI file, also on my computer; either one I can play through my media box…it’s more a matter of how much time I have and what it is. Usually, I will just opt to watch the original on the real DVD or BD player, but occasionally it’s convenient to have it on the computer. Exercise videos and kid’s shows are good examples…things that get watched repeatedly and put a lot of ware and tare on your media. Music CDs are another good example, I’m in the process of digitizing my CD collection…well the ones I have access to anyway. Probably close to 300 CDs, the remaining 200 or so are sitting in a box at my mother’s place across the country. I figure I might actually listen to some occasionally if they’re in an MP3 format and a little more portable. It also gives me the option of boxing them up to make some room. My media closet is getting pretty full…I wish they would make DVD cases smaller.

  44. Levies
    Levies are stupid.

    How about we add a levy for software too. Like couple hundred dollars added to each computer sold, plus on all devices. To compensate software houses for any pirated programs

    Levies on copiers.

    And, why not, levies on guns. Couple thousand dollars per sold gun to create a fund for those that were victims of an armed attack.

    And so on.

    I know one thing. There’s no levy on picklocks to compensate me if someone steals my car. My way to protect the car against theft is to insure it. With an insurance company.

    So if the artists think that someone is stealing from them: go insure the goods for theft. Pay a premium and so on. Why should *I* pay their premium?

    Nap.