When is Censorship Okay?

[Calum]

PS - and anybody from the MES who thinks they know better is welcome to take the baton up, if they can refrain from childish insults, though i won't be going back to the MES to continue the discussion.

Even kintaro stabs me in the back (completely irrationally i might add) in this idiotic thread: http://www.stop-microsoft.org/bbs/index.php/topic,12407.45.html

How a bunch of script kiddies think i know nothing about copyright law what with me only being a freelance musical creator is beyond me.

[Aloone_Jonez]

You said it should be allowed. That's not ripping off, is it, by your estimations? You think that's morally fine.

Yes, I think it's morally fine for a rapper to sample your song, it should be part of fair use/dealing depending on your jurisdiction, as long as they don't pretend it's their work, which would be plagiarism.

true, but this is no excuse to make a stupid law even more stupid.

I'm talking about making the law less stupid.

Having said that, say this does happen, like some rapper samples my song What Colour Is Your Life and turns it into a serious, relevant race awareness song (or something) and makes a mint, and it gets played on the radio, and my record gets tons of sales too, what is the actual legal position? Do i retain my rights even if i choose not to prosecute the rapper? I'm fairly sure my rights don't automatically revert to the rapper.

Given today's system, the rapper's record company might try to sue, even though the rapper himself knew full well he sampled your song and it would be immoral. You would then have to prove that you wrote the original.

no it isn't, it encourages the rapper to actually create 100% of his song, rather than 90%, ergo 10% *more* creativity has happened, but yeah, this is up to the individuals, and so it should be.

How much music is completely original?

Even though most bands don't directly copy the works of others, they're still heavily influenced by artists of the current or previous day. In short I think remixing and sampling is great and often improves music and if people are allowed to freely play and remould the works of others then things will be better not worse.

This is why i think the current situation, where people control the rights to their own works, is better than a system where the government takes a heavy and detailed hand in the affairs of creators. That is what is being proposed, and history shows us that governments suck at legislating for creative areas. Current copyright law still dates back to a time before recorded music even existed!

I disagree, I don't see how the current situation gives people the rights to control their own works, in theory maybe but in reality more like the record company protects its right to work created by its artists.

And no, I'm not proposing that the government takes a greater role but a lesser role: don't forget that copyright law was created by the government in the first place so weakening it would reduce the role of the government.

Not necessarily and it depends on what you mean by copy it. If you're talking about someone photocopying it then I don't see the problem as the copy is clearly different to the original, if they're painting it themselves then pretending it's mine then it's forgery but if they're painting it themselves and being honest about it being a copy then I don't see the problem because they would have to pay themselves much less than I get paid.

good answer, i suppose this supports the put-the-rights-in-the-hands-of-the-creator viewpoint too, do you think?

Well I do support the idea that the original creator should have some rights over their work, just not to the same level as is given by current copyright law but that wasn't what I was saying there. I was talking about the right of the purchaser to know whether what they have purchased is a painting by the original artist or a copy by someone else.

Whether you are truly incapable of understanding it or not, my real point is this: i own my own copyright.

You only own the copyright because the laws of the land state this is the case. If no other laws existed, you'd still be able to protect yourself and physical property but you wouldn't be able to protect your creative works, you can only do that because some government has said you should be able to.

By the way I understand your point and I believe piratepenguin does also. You need to understand that people may be capable of understanding your view but disagree with it.

Do you understand piratepenguins point?

I do, even though I disagree with it. He believes that it should not be possible to take ownership of a song, program, picture etc. because they do not physically exist other than in ones mind or on some media, be it film, tape or digital memory so it has no inerrant value.

I disagree with this because like Kintaro has said people should be able to draw up contracts which enable to creator to benefit in some way, although there should be limits on what is reasonable for what a typical home user should have to read.

I disagree with the current copyright system because I consider it to be oppressive and harming the economy rather than encouraging creativity which was the original purpose. I don't see how it benefits small artists, only big record, film and software companies really benefit.

I think that the term of copyright should be drastically reduced, allowing an artist to continue to generate revenue from a a record they made 40 years ago is not going to encourage them to be more creative.

As I mentioned before, people should be allowed to sample the works of others as long as it's reasonable i.e. they don't just copy the entire record; this should come under fair use/dealing. This is how it works with scientific papers and journalism: you can legally quote as long as you give credit.

Non-profit organisations should of course be given more license to use copyrighted material without royalties.

And anybody saying that "should" not be the case can stick it up their arse.

So what you're basically saying is that anyone who disagrees with me can fuck off. That's the kind of attitude that resulted in you being treated the way you were, over at the MES.

no, but you have successfully exemplified exactly what happened at the MES, ie: i say something, you misinterpret it, and choose to put antagonistic views in my mouth and then you throw all your toys out of the pram. Your response here has proved you are capable of discussing this issue like an adult, so don't let yourself down now.

If you don't want people to put antagonistic views in your mouth then don't use antagonistic language such as anybody saying that "should" not be the case can stick it up their arse.

[Calum]

excellent summary. Of course i understand this. Just because i have not made my mind up about this issue fully does not mean i am a simpleton. I would contend that those of you who have made your minds up about copyright must not be sufficiently informed or interested in the subject, or you wouldn't be so steadfast in your views.

The suggestion that my lack of certainty equals a too-basic understanding is completely preposterous.

also i 100% disagree that it's reasonable to misinterpret someone due to their choice of language. If there's childishness here, that's where it is. And before you say that isn't what you said, reread what you typed. You gave me advice about how to avoid people putting antagonistic words in my mouth. In my view, it is not my responsibility to stop people putting words of any slant in my mouth, and whether i say "arse" or not won't make any difference to this.

I struggle to understand how someone can seriously think it is okay to derail an entire discussion on the basis that they have arbitrarily decided to be offended by their opponent's choice of words. It's one of the most pathetic get-outs i have ever heard of for someone who doesn't want to continue a debate.

[Aloone_Jonez]

excellent summary. Of course i understand this. Just because i have not made my mind up about this issue fully does not mean i am a simpleton. I would contend that those of you who have made your minds up about copyright must not be sufficiently informed or interested in the subject, or you wouldn't be so steadfast in your views.

I've not completely made my mind up about copyright, the only thing I'm sure about is that the current system is broken and needs changing.

also i 100% disagree that it's reasonable to misinterpret someone due to their choice of language. If there's childishness here, that's where it is. And before you say that isn't what you said, reread what you typed. You gave me advice about how to avoid people putting antagonistic words in my mouth. In my view, it is not my responsibility to stop people putting words of any slant in my mouth, and whether i say "arse" or not won't make any difference to this.

Sigh.

Maybe I gave up too much ground to you there. I was wrong to agree with you about people putting antagonistic views into your mouth, no one's done that. You came across as antagonistic pure and simple so you shouldn't be surprised when someone believes you hold such views, which I now know you don't.

All I'm saying if several people tell you the same thing then maybe you should ask yourself something?

Do you seriously think that everyone at the MES behaved badly and you're the only one who didn't? All right maybe we we're immature, arrogant, rude etc. but so are you.

Now I admit you said something to piss me off on the MES and maybe you had a point too but I chose to stop having the discussion because I felt it would've only wound me up more and it wasn't worth the stress, which is probably what I should have said in the first place.

You completely mishandled the misunderstanding we had earlier.

And anybody saying that "should" not be the case can stick it up their arse.

So what you're basically saying is that anyone who disagrees with me can fuck off. That's the kind of attitude that resulted in you being treated the way you were, over at the MES.

Having a go at me for misinterpreting what you said was not the right thing to do, you should have considered that it could've been a genuine misunderstanding, which is indeed what it was.

Now I know that's not what you meant,  I re-read the thread and realised you had edited your post: look at the timestamps on the posts and quotes and last edited by.

http://www.radioknop.nl/heatedebates/bbs/index.php/topic,1221.msg12692.html#msg12692

You clearly didn't mean it but I had already clicked the reply button. You should've said something like "No I didn't mean that, look I edited my reply" and I would've said, "That's all right, I didn't notice."

No doubt you could go over various threads and pick them to pieces and I'm sure I've made mistakes before but so does everyone else, you just need to be more aware of this and drop the idea that you're the victim all the time and are infallible.

[Calum]

not entirely sure what you mean by the date stamps, i don't ever remove content, even if i change my mind, so that's not what's happened, but i do go and make spelling corrections, and sometimes add a sentence or paragraph on the end of what i had written (not days later, just if i read over it and think of something else, rather than start a new reply). And your replies don't fall between the times of me posting each reply, and then updating it (7 minutes and 10 minutes later in those two cases), so i can't really see how this caused any confusion.

But, thanks very much for attempting to flatten out this discussion into something sensible, very much appreciated. I think you have made quite a realistic assessment of what's happened there. I did used to get too emotional on the MES, because it was the first forum i signed up for and i was a member for ten years, and it was frustrating to see how far it's fallen. I've begun the healing process now though! It's in my past. :-)

[Aloone_Jonez]

not entirely sure what you mean by the date stamps, i don't ever remove content, even if i change my mind, so that's not what's happened, but i do go and make spelling corrections, and sometimes add a sentence or paragraph on the end of what i had written (not days later, just if i read over it and think of something else, rather than start a new reply).

Sorry, I misread the thread, you didn't remove the stick it up their arse comment but going from what you've now said, it seems like you got passionate and emotional and didn't mean to use such antagonistic language - that's all right.

[kintaro]

Yeah I got sucked into group psychology. My comments were entirely irrational. Sorry Calum.