On Sun, 09 Jun 2013 14:08:54 -0700, Mark Janssen wrote: > I'm sorry, this is just the way it is -- everyone's just gone along with > the program tacitly because they get intimidated by the legal system.
Your definition of "just the way it is" does not agree with mine. You're describing how you *want* copyright law to be, rather than how it actually is. I've noticed something abut the difference between progressives and liberals, compared to a particular type of American conservative. You know the ones -- they're big on states rights, "Don't Tread On Me" bravado, repealing income tax, guns, god, and the right to refuse service to anyone they like. (And they never, ever, not in a million years, imagine *themselves* as the one being discriminated against.) When progressives and liberals find a law they don't like, they invariable argue that the law is unjust or unfair, or even illegal, and that it should be repealed or fixed. They say things like "repeatedly extending copyright terms retroactively goes against the stated purpose of copyright, it is harmful to society as a whole, and we should stop doing it every time Mickey Mouse is about to enter the public domain". Or they say, "Fair use is important, and the courts ought to strengthen it rather than continuing to weaken it as they have been." In other words, they distinguish between how things *are* and how they *should be*. This particular subset of American conservatives, on the other hand, argue differently when they find a law they don't like. Rather than say that copyright terms *ought to be* for 28 years, like in the good old days before Disney bought the United States Congress, they say things like "copyright lasts for 28 years, don't let the courts intimidate you into believing differently". Rather than say that fair use *should* allow you to make a copy for personal use, they say things like "fair use lets you make a copy of anything for personal use, that's just the way it is, if you think different you've been intimidated". It's a fascinating difference. On the one hand, their recognition that ultimately all laws and rights boil down to the question of who is best at imposing their will via the application of force is refreshingly realistic; on the other hand their need to explicitly refer to it as often as they do is rather worrying. So, coming back to reality, copyright law, as it is enforced (when you come down to it) by men and women with big guns, does not allow you to make personal copies of anything you like as "fair use". The precise details of fair use differ from country to country, but generally fair use allows you to make a copy of a *small* portion of a work, for the purposes of (e.g.) academic commentary, reviews, parody or criticism. Transformative fair use (e.g. remixing and sampling) is often right on the edge, and therefore legally risky. E.g. even if taking a small sample of a song and inserting it into your own music falls under fair use, in practice the courts usually side with whoever brings the most lawyers, so it is cheaper to just pay a licence fee up front. Personally, I think that's terrible, but that's the way it is at this moment in history. Of course, in practice copyright law is not always enforced. Many people have created mix tapes of songs recorded from the radio, which is as clear a case of copyright infringement as there is, but very few of them have been sued. The internet is full of people torrenting movies and TV shows, and only a tiny proportion have been sued, but those that have often lose an exorbitant amount compared to the actual economic harm committed. Ripping a CD to your iPod is strictly illegal in most countries, but unlikely to be pursued; ripping a CD and then selling copies of the mp3 over the Internet will likely have the police come knocking unless you're in a part of the world that doesn't recognise or enforce copyright. So there is often a difference between what the law says and what the law actually enforces. But bringing it back to the original topic, I believe that the philosophy of FOSS is that we should try our best to honour the intentions of the writer, not to find some legal loophole that permits us to copy his or her work against their wishes. -- Steven -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
