"Enchanting arrangement of points above the problem of copywriting"
Yes, I know that I'm not the first, and even, perhaps, not one thousand and twenty-four, but someone still needs to do this. I understand perfectly well that the topic has already bothered everyone, but all the same, every day I meet insteric cries. In the end, it’s not my fault that people have a nag of the head, but one way or another - I live with it, and it would be much nicer to exist in a world where the majority at least understand what it is and why certain things exist just like that and not otherwise.
That is why I will try to explain in a simple and accessible manner to the general reader about all the major misconceptions regarding copyright issues that exist in our world. Indeed, without an understanding of the basics, any conversation on this topic turns into a sluggish srach, simply because the parties speak a different language. I will describe the problem not from the point of view of an emotional consumer or a greedy producer, but from the point of view of a market economy and legislation. How things are in this sector, many imagine quite vague.
The topic will be built according to the dialogue pattern. All questions are taken from open sources, I do not invent these nonsense - people really think that way and ask exactly that. Maybe someone will recognize themselves.
')
I apologize for a somewhat frivolous introduction, then everything will be more formal and structured. So, a brief summary for those who want to eradicate the germs of illiteracy and to join the large and bright world of those who are knowledgeable in this matter.
1. Information should be distributed free of charge!
2. Piracy is not theft.
3. I bought a product - a disk (book, tape), which means I can do whatever I want with it.
4. I can physically copy information - so, by law, no one can forbid it to me.
5. I'd rather buy the same thing from pirates - they successfully compete with copyright holders due to lower prices.
6. Who said that I accept the terms of the license agreement?
7. Why is it so expensive? I think it should be cheaper.
8. I do not want to pay for low-quality goods.
9. Why not switch to a donation system? Radiohead did it!
10. What is to be done with the dominance of low-quality content?
11. I believe that by distributing content for free, I help copyright holders increase sales. All of this only benefit.
Q: Information should be distributed for free!
A: The argument is the most diverse. Someone believes that the consumption of information is an integral part of the natural human life. Someone believes that the uncontrolled consumption of information stimulates the development of society. Someone just says that for the "air" (that is, for non-material entities) to pay somehow zapadlo.
To begin with, the very premise of this statement is akin to the socialist principle “from each according to need, to each according to work”. As they say, we do not consider questions of faith here, and therefore we turn to the objective side.
The objective side is that a person or group of people spends a certain amount of time and effort on creating an information product. The quality of the product will be set aside for the time being - there will be a separate conversation about it. The main thing now is that the person is working to get some kind of product. Consequently, according to the laws of a market economy, with the exception of certain particular cases, this product belongs to him, and he has the full right to dispose of his further existence. One option is to sell the legal right to use the product for a certain amount of money. This is called “licensing”, and this is what will be discussed in further questions.
A person who believes that all information should of course be distributed free of charge and be accessible to any person encroaches on the basics of a market economy. In fact, he declares that the results of a person’s activity may be alienated from him for the benefit of another person just like that. That is, the speech in this case moves away from the copyright problem to the problem of the benefits and harms of the market economy as such, and we do not consider political disputes - this is to political scientists.
Q: Piracy is not theft.
A: Naturally, piracy (or rather, counterfeiting, as a more general concept) is not theft. Because if it were a theft, it would be planted under the article "theft" and not "violation of copyright and related rights." Murder is not theft in the same way as counterfeiting. And rape is not theft. And forging documents is not theft, either. However, all of these are unlawful acts for which, in accordance with the law, a person is liable if he has guilt. The legal concept of guilt includes the provision that for its existence, a person should be aware that his act is illegal, or at least be able to find out. That is to read the law. And ignorance of the law, as you know, does not relieve from responsibility.
Q: I bought a product - a disk (a book, a tape), which means I can do whatever I want with it.
A: If you bought a disk (empty) - you can really do with it everything your heart desires. You can, for example, throw it from the balcony, or shove it in the microwave. You can wash with him in the shower and sing lullabies for him at night. Because you bought the goods, and then you can dispose of them within the law.
However, buying a disc with information (music, film, book) you spend most of your money, if not strange, not on physical media, but pay in accordance with a licensing agreement that gives you legal access to an information object protected by copyright law. right That is, buying a disc, you get the right to listen to music, read a book and watch a movie. Information is not a commodity, about this - see my previous topic, but because the relationship here does not arise commodity-money, as when buying a loaf of bread, but licensing, which are regulated by completely different mechanisms.
Any comparison of the disc with music with a loaf of bread is a sign of an illiterate person who does not understand at all what it is about.
And with the disc, you can still do what you want. And the loss of the original media should not deprive you of access to the licensed content, because you pay for it, and not at all the cost of replication. This is the first serious problem of a modern copyright institution - the inability to prove the existence of a license in the absence of physical confirmation.
Q: I can physically copy information - so, by law, no one can forbid it to me.
A: I can physically approach you at night and shake you under the ribs. What will happen to me later is a separate article (105, if I'm not mistaken), but I have physical opportunity (especially if you are weaker than me). Why then do they prohibit me from killing the weak?
The possibility of uncontrolled replication of information is a real problem of right holders with which they are unsuccessfully struggling. Because effective mechanisms are inconvenient for consumers and reduce sales, and convenient ones are ineffective and also reduce sales. The current state of affairs is a certain parity between convenience and sales. As soon as someone ceases to make parity (not at the level of shouts, “the copyright must die”, but at a more serious one) the balance will shift. And it is constantly shifting, but the problem is not solved at the moment, and it will not be solved for a long time.
It should be remembered that the license agreement you are accessing the content. And the physical presence of your content does not give you an automatic right to use it. A simple analogy is driving license. You can own an arbitrarily large number of cars (own them), but you cannot drive them or even register them.
Q: I'd rather buy the same thing from pirates - they successfully compete with copyright holders due to lower prices.
A: To declare that producers of licensed content compete with pirates is the same as saying that manufacturers of Tetra Pak packages are competing with dairy farms. They sell completely different things.
The first trade in licenses for access to protected content, and it is this cost (which includes all kinds of profits from all parties) that determines the cost of a disk in a store by 99%, since the cost of replication is negligible. The second trade in the very "goods" - disks, whose own cost - 10 cents. The cost of a disk for pirates is 100 rubles; you can calculate the profit of pirates as a percentage. Believe that it is orders of magnitude lower than the profits of the owners.
Pirates do not provide the most important thing - legal access to information, and competition is possible only between structures that produce the same product for their consumer properties. Legality is one of the consumer properties of any informational content. And even if from the point of view of the end user, the pirated and licensed disk looks exactly the same, from a legal point of view it is wrong. And since we strive to live in a state of law, it would be nice to know the laws.
Q: Who said that I accept the terms of the license agreement?
A: By installing, for example, a program, you tick off "I accept the terms of the license agreement." Similarly, you “sign” a license agreement at the time of buying the disk, and the physical equivalent of the contract is a cash voucher. By the way, the back of the disc says that the phonogram is intended only for private listening, and illegal replication is prohibited. Fully restore the license agreement can only be buried in the legislation, and this third problem of the right holders - in an accessible and understandable form to convey to people what they have the right and why. This problem is currently not solved at all, as evidenced, for example, by this post.
Q: Why is it so expensive? I think it should be cheaper.
A: Because the copyright holder believes that it should cost so much. And he, I note, it has every right.
Regulation of market prices occurs due to the mechanism, which is popularly called “voting by the ruble”. A good product is bought, and the manufacturer can increase prices. Bad goods are not bought, and the manufacturer is forced to drop prices. However, piracy is not part of the market mechanism of self-regulation of prices (just like, for example, corruption, which, however, affects prices, and often very weighty). Piracy in general has no relation to a market economy, it is a problem of the state and the enforcement of legislation.
The consumer gets access to the content on the basis of a licensing agreement, which is carried out according to the principle of a public offer. That is, the consumer is invited to transfer a certain amount of money to the manufacturer’s account in order to gain access to the information he needs. For the implementation of the market mechanism of regulation, the consumer should not accept such proposals from producers of low-quality content. And here we come to the fourth problem of rightholders - not providing trial access to licensed content. Although, for example, the same last.fm provides such a service, which gives hope for a speedy resolution of the problem.
Q: I do not want to pay for low-quality goods.
A: That is your right. And the duty of the right holder is to inform you as much as possible about the consumer properties of the product, which I wrote about a little higher.
However, there is a problem of quality assessment. I will give a simple example.
You go to the store and see a big and beautiful cake. The cake smells delicious, the shelf life has not expired, and it is humane, and you buy it. When you come home, you try it and with horror realize that it is completely tasteless. Is this a quality issue? Yes. Does anyone give you back money for a tasteless cake? I doubt it. At least, I do not know any precedents in this area.
The problem of assessing the quality of information is one of the fundamental problems of mankind as a whole. You can see examples on Habré, just before voting try to predict the evaluation of one topic or another. Your rating will be an indicator of the quality of the article for you personally, and the assessment of the community for the community as a whole. At the same time, the assessment of the community may not correlate with the assessment of each person individually, but will express the integral opinion of the majority.
Where quality is a subjective assessment, a material quality assessment is impossible. And in the absence of formal criteria - it is impossible to conduct business.
The quality of a book, for example, is determined by the imprinting of the letters and the strength of the pages, and not by the quality of the text. The quality of the disc - the absence of cracks and balance. But all these things have nothing to do with the quality of information.
Q: Why not switch to a donation system? Radiohead did it!
A: Unfortunately, there is one bad tendency that explains the dominance of torrents and the presence of this article. If the consumer can not pay, he will not pay.
The donation system is good for beginning musicians, writers, poets and independent (indne-) creative teams, as it gives them a very convenient feedback mechanism, and they have few opportunities. It is very difficult to do business on the basis of donations, and there is an opinion that it is impossible at all.
To begin with, no one knows whether the donation system will work at all, and if it does, someone will come up. If someone has interesting thoughts on this topic - please share in the comments, this is an interesting point for discussion.
Q: What does it do with the dominance of low-quality content?
A: Take advantage of the market mechanisms for the regulation of content - do not buy it. Do not listen, read, watch or pay for your money. Until low-quality content is distributed illegally - manufacturers consider it to be in demand and continue to sell. As soon as he becomes unclaimed - he will disappear, but it is not clear what will take his place.
For lovers of high-quality content, I suggest simply to look for it not in popular culture, but in those same indie producers. Bulk content is designed to meet the needs of the mass consumer, and if you have higher needs, it is logical that it does not satisfy you.
Q: I believe that by distributing content for free, I help copyright holders increase sales. All of this only benefit.
A: I believe that the content producer himself must decide how it should be distributed, for such is his legal right.
Many companies condone illegal distribution of their content, believing that this raises its sales. It is their right. Some forbid - this is also their right. However, you don’t have the right to select from the content producer its right to determine its life cycle, even with good goals for the producer.
Thank you for your attention, suggestions and questions please in the comments - the most common, I will make in the main post. However, if you even read it - this is already a big deal. Many do not even try to understand the essence of the things that surround them.
That is why I will try to explain in a simple and accessible manner to the general reader about all the major misconceptions regarding copyright issues that exist in our world. Indeed, without an understanding of the basics, any conversation on this topic turns into a sluggish srach, simply because the parties speak a different language. I will describe the problem not from the point of view of an emotional consumer or a greedy producer, but from the point of view of a market economy and legislation. How things are in this sector, many imagine quite vague.
The topic will be built according to the dialogue pattern. All questions are taken from open sources, I do not invent these nonsense - people really think that way and ask exactly that. Maybe someone will recognize themselves.
')
I apologize for a somewhat frivolous introduction, then everything will be more formal and structured. So, a brief summary for those who want to eradicate the germs of illiteracy and to join the large and bright world of those who are knowledgeable in this matter.
1. Information should be distributed free of charge!
2. Piracy is not theft.
3. I bought a product - a disk (book, tape), which means I can do whatever I want with it.
4. I can physically copy information - so, by law, no one can forbid it to me.
5. I'd rather buy the same thing from pirates - they successfully compete with copyright holders due to lower prices.
6. Who said that I accept the terms of the license agreement?
7. Why is it so expensive? I think it should be cheaper.
8. I do not want to pay for low-quality goods.
9. Why not switch to a donation system? Radiohead did it!
10. What is to be done with the dominance of low-quality content?
11. I believe that by distributing content for free, I help copyright holders increase sales. All of this only benefit.
Q: Information should be distributed for free!
A: The argument is the most diverse. Someone believes that the consumption of information is an integral part of the natural human life. Someone believes that the uncontrolled consumption of information stimulates the development of society. Someone just says that for the "air" (that is, for non-material entities) to pay somehow zapadlo.
To begin with, the very premise of this statement is akin to the socialist principle “from each according to need, to each according to work”. As they say, we do not consider questions of faith here, and therefore we turn to the objective side.
The objective side is that a person or group of people spends a certain amount of time and effort on creating an information product. The quality of the product will be set aside for the time being - there will be a separate conversation about it. The main thing now is that the person is working to get some kind of product. Consequently, according to the laws of a market economy, with the exception of certain particular cases, this product belongs to him, and he has the full right to dispose of his further existence. One option is to sell the legal right to use the product for a certain amount of money. This is called “licensing”, and this is what will be discussed in further questions.
A person who believes that all information should of course be distributed free of charge and be accessible to any person encroaches on the basics of a market economy. In fact, he declares that the results of a person’s activity may be alienated from him for the benefit of another person just like that. That is, the speech in this case moves away from the copyright problem to the problem of the benefits and harms of the market economy as such, and we do not consider political disputes - this is to political scientists.
Q: Piracy is not theft.
A: Naturally, piracy (or rather, counterfeiting, as a more general concept) is not theft. Because if it were a theft, it would be planted under the article "theft" and not "violation of copyright and related rights." Murder is not theft in the same way as counterfeiting. And rape is not theft. And forging documents is not theft, either. However, all of these are unlawful acts for which, in accordance with the law, a person is liable if he has guilt. The legal concept of guilt includes the provision that for its existence, a person should be aware that his act is illegal, or at least be able to find out. That is to read the law. And ignorance of the law, as you know, does not relieve from responsibility.
Q: I bought a product - a disk (a book, a tape), which means I can do whatever I want with it.
A: If you bought a disk (empty) - you can really do with it everything your heart desires. You can, for example, throw it from the balcony, or shove it in the microwave. You can wash with him in the shower and sing lullabies for him at night. Because you bought the goods, and then you can dispose of them within the law.
However, buying a disc with information (music, film, book) you spend most of your money, if not strange, not on physical media, but pay in accordance with a licensing agreement that gives you legal access to an information object protected by copyright law. right That is, buying a disc, you get the right to listen to music, read a book and watch a movie. Information is not a commodity, about this - see my previous topic, but because the relationship here does not arise commodity-money, as when buying a loaf of bread, but licensing, which are regulated by completely different mechanisms.
Any comparison of the disc with music with a loaf of bread is a sign of an illiterate person who does not understand at all what it is about.
And with the disc, you can still do what you want. And the loss of the original media should not deprive you of access to the licensed content, because you pay for it, and not at all the cost of replication. This is the first serious problem of a modern copyright institution - the inability to prove the existence of a license in the absence of physical confirmation.
Q: I can physically copy information - so, by law, no one can forbid it to me.
A: I can physically approach you at night and shake you under the ribs. What will happen to me later is a separate article (105, if I'm not mistaken), but I have physical opportunity (especially if you are weaker than me). Why then do they prohibit me from killing the weak?
The possibility of uncontrolled replication of information is a real problem of right holders with which they are unsuccessfully struggling. Because effective mechanisms are inconvenient for consumers and reduce sales, and convenient ones are ineffective and also reduce sales. The current state of affairs is a certain parity between convenience and sales. As soon as someone ceases to make parity (not at the level of shouts, “the copyright must die”, but at a more serious one) the balance will shift. And it is constantly shifting, but the problem is not solved at the moment, and it will not be solved for a long time.
It should be remembered that the license agreement you are accessing the content. And the physical presence of your content does not give you an automatic right to use it. A simple analogy is driving license. You can own an arbitrarily large number of cars (own them), but you cannot drive them or even register them.
Q: I'd rather buy the same thing from pirates - they successfully compete with copyright holders due to lower prices.
A: To declare that producers of licensed content compete with pirates is the same as saying that manufacturers of Tetra Pak packages are competing with dairy farms. They sell completely different things.
The first trade in licenses for access to protected content, and it is this cost (which includes all kinds of profits from all parties) that determines the cost of a disk in a store by 99%, since the cost of replication is negligible. The second trade in the very "goods" - disks, whose own cost - 10 cents. The cost of a disk for pirates is 100 rubles; you can calculate the profit of pirates as a percentage. Believe that it is orders of magnitude lower than the profits of the owners.
Pirates do not provide the most important thing - legal access to information, and competition is possible only between structures that produce the same product for their consumer properties. Legality is one of the consumer properties of any informational content. And even if from the point of view of the end user, the pirated and licensed disk looks exactly the same, from a legal point of view it is wrong. And since we strive to live in a state of law, it would be nice to know the laws.
Q: Who said that I accept the terms of the license agreement?
A: By installing, for example, a program, you tick off "I accept the terms of the license agreement." Similarly, you “sign” a license agreement at the time of buying the disk, and the physical equivalent of the contract is a cash voucher. By the way, the back of the disc says that the phonogram is intended only for private listening, and illegal replication is prohibited. Fully restore the license agreement can only be buried in the legislation, and this third problem of the right holders - in an accessible and understandable form to convey to people what they have the right and why. This problem is currently not solved at all, as evidenced, for example, by this post.
Q: Why is it so expensive? I think it should be cheaper.
A: Because the copyright holder believes that it should cost so much. And he, I note, it has every right.
Regulation of market prices occurs due to the mechanism, which is popularly called “voting by the ruble”. A good product is bought, and the manufacturer can increase prices. Bad goods are not bought, and the manufacturer is forced to drop prices. However, piracy is not part of the market mechanism of self-regulation of prices (just like, for example, corruption, which, however, affects prices, and often very weighty). Piracy in general has no relation to a market economy, it is a problem of the state and the enforcement of legislation.
The consumer gets access to the content on the basis of a licensing agreement, which is carried out according to the principle of a public offer. That is, the consumer is invited to transfer a certain amount of money to the manufacturer’s account in order to gain access to the information he needs. For the implementation of the market mechanism of regulation, the consumer should not accept such proposals from producers of low-quality content. And here we come to the fourth problem of rightholders - not providing trial access to licensed content. Although, for example, the same last.fm provides such a service, which gives hope for a speedy resolution of the problem.
Q: I do not want to pay for low-quality goods.
A: That is your right. And the duty of the right holder is to inform you as much as possible about the consumer properties of the product, which I wrote about a little higher.
However, there is a problem of quality assessment. I will give a simple example.
You go to the store and see a big and beautiful cake. The cake smells delicious, the shelf life has not expired, and it is humane, and you buy it. When you come home, you try it and with horror realize that it is completely tasteless. Is this a quality issue? Yes. Does anyone give you back money for a tasteless cake? I doubt it. At least, I do not know any precedents in this area.
The problem of assessing the quality of information is one of the fundamental problems of mankind as a whole. You can see examples on Habré, just before voting try to predict the evaluation of one topic or another. Your rating will be an indicator of the quality of the article for you personally, and the assessment of the community for the community as a whole. At the same time, the assessment of the community may not correlate with the assessment of each person individually, but will express the integral opinion of the majority.
Where quality is a subjective assessment, a material quality assessment is impossible. And in the absence of formal criteria - it is impossible to conduct business.
The quality of a book, for example, is determined by the imprinting of the letters and the strength of the pages, and not by the quality of the text. The quality of the disc - the absence of cracks and balance. But all these things have nothing to do with the quality of information.
Q: Why not switch to a donation system? Radiohead did it!
A: Unfortunately, there is one bad tendency that explains the dominance of torrents and the presence of this article. If the consumer can not pay, he will not pay.
The donation system is good for beginning musicians, writers, poets and independent (indne-) creative teams, as it gives them a very convenient feedback mechanism, and they have few opportunities. It is very difficult to do business on the basis of donations, and there is an opinion that it is impossible at all.
To begin with, no one knows whether the donation system will work at all, and if it does, someone will come up. If someone has interesting thoughts on this topic - please share in the comments, this is an interesting point for discussion.
Q: What does it do with the dominance of low-quality content?
A: Take advantage of the market mechanisms for the regulation of content - do not buy it. Do not listen, read, watch or pay for your money. Until low-quality content is distributed illegally - manufacturers consider it to be in demand and continue to sell. As soon as he becomes unclaimed - he will disappear, but it is not clear what will take his place.
For lovers of high-quality content, I suggest simply to look for it not in popular culture, but in those same indie producers. Bulk content is designed to meet the needs of the mass consumer, and if you have higher needs, it is logical that it does not satisfy you.
Q: I believe that by distributing content for free, I help copyright holders increase sales. All of this only benefit.
A: I believe that the content producer himself must decide how it should be distributed, for such is his legal right.
Many companies condone illegal distribution of their content, believing that this raises its sales. It is their right. Some forbid - this is also their right. However, you don’t have the right to select from the content producer its right to determine its life cycle, even with good goals for the producer.
Thank you for your attention, suggestions and questions please in the comments - the most common, I will make in the main post. However, if you even read it - this is already a big deal. Many do not even try to understand the essence of the things that surround them.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/97095/
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