[Aurini]

I'm partly surprised that this hasn't been mentioned in the forum already, but I can see how it might have been missed by many of the members here; I only just became aware of it, and I'm somewhat active in the circles where it has become a major concern.

Over the past month, there's been a major uptick in YouTube channels being flagged, banned, and having their revenue stolen due to complaints about copyright infringement in cases of clear fair use. This is because of a broken copyright-claim system which:

• Provides financial incentive to those who claim ownership of copyrighted content,
• Offers no penalties for false claims,
• Punishes those who try and fight back,
• And ultimately undermining the principle of Fair Use, restricting all content creators and content consumers on YouTube
  

The Nostalgia Critic - regardless of what you think of him - covers this fairly concisely, explaining the important nuances in the following video:

In case you didn't watch the video - he has to deal with this nonsense, on average, every other day.

I became aware of all of this when my own YouTube Channel was taken down due to "Community Standard violations"; after reviewing several videos where I was discussing the Bible, and Libertarian Moral Philosophy, YouTube has come to the decisions that I was either "Promoting criminal behaviour" our "Engaging in fraudulent scams and/or spam", depending on whom I speak to. On the surface it's a separate issue, but it's part of a wider pattern of censorship that we're seeing:

Anita Sarkeesian being recruited for the "Trust and Safety Council" on Twitter.
The (recently revealed) 2012 YouTube censorship of Benghazi.
Facebook censoring posts about migrants in Germany.
GamerGate.
The media attack on the meetups.

They are rapidly trying to No Platform us, which is making independent blogs and forums such as this all the more important. The frustrating part? The political moderates (not that we're particularly extreme, mind you - but you know who I'm talking about) are equally at risk of being No Platformed, but like GamerGate, it's unlikely that we'll be able to form a solid alliance with them against the common enemy.

That said, we might be able to ally with them by moving over to a new service. I'd be interested in hearing others' thoughts on this.

[Paracelsus]

A tangential point to this, perhaps, but copyright in general is a wooden cart hitched to a sports car. The entire concept needs to be rethought.

You can certainly appreciate the original idea of copyright: somebody who makes an artistic work in any form generally isn't going to get paid a lot initially for it because most copyrighted works are built on the speculation that somebody is going to like them enough to buy them. The only real exceptions are commissioned works. Therefore when an artist does go through all that work more or less without any chance of success, and especially given many artistic works are not fully appreciated upon release but only much later (even Shakespeare was not that popular for centuries until the Romantics rediscovered him), an artist should have the exclusive right to determine who gets to reproduce his work. He did the work; he deserves to get paid for it if indeed it sells at all. And because artistic works are arguably not commodities, capable of continuing to exist beyond one use, copyright should subsist for his life and for his heirs (who were typically impoverished because Dad was too busy sculpting statutes or writing novels to pay for a good education for them.)

But it doesn't work in the present era for two main reasons:

(1) Copyright of most saleable work doesn't in reality rest with its creator. Invariably the copyright lies with the publisher of that work, which is to say, the distributor. And once that publisher has that copyright back, it's damnably hard for the creator to get it back. And since a company can be immortal as an author cannot, only the work falling into the public domain some 50 years after the death of the creator then breaks the stranglehold on that grip.

(2) The sheer number of published works and the availability of those public works via the Internet has reduced the rough value of those works to zero, or at least to the price of an Internet connection, and there are no real gatekeepers for quality of published works. Supply, in short, has all but turned published work into a commodity.

Joe Konrath has a very capitalist, but thought-provoking article on the concept:

http://jakonrath.blogspot.com.au/2016/01...riter.html

Quote:

I just read a repost on Passive Voice called Pay the Writer. And I disagreed with most of it.

Why?

Because no one owes me a living.

Repeat that to yourself. Say it out loud if you need to.

No one owes me a living.

A sense of entitlement is a dangerous thing. If you're lucky, you'll find readers. If you're really lucky, you'll make a few bucks.

But just because you can string a few pretty sentences together doesn't mean you get to earn a living.

I know how hard you work, because I also work hard. But I'm not entitled to earning a living, either.

It's a very dangerous thing when writers start to believe that they are owed something for their work. It's also fallacious.

Let's say you're a ditch digger, because--as a wise man once said--the world needs ditch diggers too. And you spend 8 hours digging a ditch, busting your ass in the hot sun.

Do you deserve to be paid?

Sure, if someone hired you to dig that ditch. If you're just randomly digging ditches that no one commissioned, on property no one owns, you don't deserve anything. You're an idiot. Or a dreamer. Or both.

Same thing with writing. Just because you wrote it, doesn't mean you deserve to be paid for it.

Q: But! But! But! But what if someone reads what I wrote? Don't I deserve to be paid then?

A: Someone reading your book is not the same as someone hiring you to dig a ditch.

First of all, when you write a book, you can potentially have an infinite number of readers. Let's say you work on it for three months. Well, someday your great-great-great-great grandchildren might read that book in the year 2155. Do you really think you deserve to get paid for something you wrote 139 years ago?

That ditch digger, assuming he was hired, dug a ditch and got paid for his time. He doesn't continue to get paid every time someone looks at his ditch. He got paid for the hours he put in, then he didn't get paid anymore.

The doctor who got a $700,000 salary for 2015 got paid $700,000 for 2015, and no more. He doesn't continue to earn money on hours he worked last year.

Are Khufu's relatives still getting royalties every time someone visits the pyramids?

Intellectual Property, which is protected by archaic copyright laws, can allow creators to continue to get paid for things they wrote long ago, for long into the future.

Personally, I don't think that's fair. And I've blogged about that at length in the past. But we'll hold off on making this an argument about reforming copyright, and focus on the belief that if a writer spends an hour on a story, they deserve to be paid over and over for that hour for eternity.

It doesn't make sense.

Q: But! But! But if someone reads a book, shouldn't they pay?

A: Not necessarily. You don't pay the writer if you check out a book at a library, or buy it used, or borrow it from your buddy.

Q: That's because readers haven't been properly taught that those venues don't pay writers.

A: Kinda like teenagers haven't been taught that drugs are bad? Do you think being taught makes a difference? While you answer that I'll be over here, getting stoned with my teenage son.

Heads up: there has always been free media. You could spend fifty lifetimes reading books and watching videos and never pay a cent. Welcome to the digital world. It's here to stay.

And beyond the free stuff out there, I believe subscriptions are quickly outpacing sales when it comes to ebooks (according to my own numbers). Kindle Unlimited pays me less for borrows than it does for sales, and my sales continue to go down as borrows go up.

Also, whining to your customers that they should spend more money on your work because you're not getting paid, and calling that "education", isn't a wise way to get in their good graces. Just sayin'.

Q: So are you okay with this borrowing trend?

A: It is what it is. Educating readers isn't going to change anything. Pleading with Amazon for scraps won't change anything. I expect this trend to continue, and whining isn't the answer.

Q: What is the answer?

A: The answer is looking for new ways to monetize your IP. But, again, that isn't the object of this blog post. This blog post is about writers who believe they deserve to be paid. I think this attitude is bad, and potentially dangerous. Encouraging a sense of entitlement isn't a good thing. Irritating readers is shitting where you eat. Believing that you deserve to earn $100 an hour on a book you wrote in 2005 is nuts--and I say that having ran a BookBub ad yesterday for Bloody Mary, which I wrote in 2005. I sold over 3000 copies and made about $2400.

I don't deserve this. I'm lucky as fuck.

Q: So what attitude should writers have?

A: I hope to be read. Any way possible. Free books, libraries, loans, used, whatever. I believe that the more readers who find me--whether they pay for it or not--the better off I'll be.

Q: But what if two million people read you but no one pays you?

A: If I have two million fans and I can't figure out how to make money off of that, then I'm an idiot.

But rather than try to squeeze money from every single person who ever glances at one of my IPs, I think the smarter thing is to sell stuff to people who want to buy stuff.

I don't fear free ebooks. I fear obscurity.

Q: And what if everything becomes free and no one buys ebooks anymore?

A: That could happen someday. But something will come along and monetize that model. Where there are fans, there is cash spent. I can't think of any situation that works differently.

But we shouldn't be expecting all fans to pay. We shouldn't be whining that we're owed something. As a writer, you're contributing to the collective creative output of the species. Good for you. But no one is forcing you to this. If you can get paid, awesome. If you can't, go find someone to pay you to dig a ditch.

Blaming Amazon, or bookstores, or libraries, or ebooks, or readers, for your inability to turn your clever words into eternal and infinite cash isn't the way to go. Less time whining and blaming, more time writing and innovating.

Q: But what about piracy? What if people are stealing my stuff?

A: You mean like someone broke into your house and stole your bike, thereby preventing you from continuing to ride that bike?

Q: No. I mean stealing my IP.

A: You mean plagiarism and bootlegging? They're selling your ebooks without your permission and keeping all the money?

Q: No. I mean they're reading my ebooks without paying.

A: Like at a library or used bookstore?

Q: Yeah! I mean no. What it they got it by file sharing?

A: Are you telling me that it upsets you when someone goes through the trouble of downloading your ebook and reading it?

Q: Yes. Without paying me.

A: Because you think you deserve to be paid every time someone reads you?

Q: Yes.

A: Do you pay the creator of every YouTube video you watch for free?

Q: No. But they have ads.

A: Then maybe your ebooks should have ads.

Q: They choose to put their work on YouTube. I don't choose to be file shared! I'm being pirated, man!

A: I've blogged at length at how I don't mind piracy. But, again, that's a topic for another blog post. This one is talking about writers who feel they deserve to be paid.

If you feel you deserve to be paid, and get upset that people are pirating you, there is an easy solution: stop writing.

There is no one forcing you to write. And certainly no one forcing you to try and sell what you've written. You wouldn't go swimming in shark infested waters, would you? Especially if you were bleeding.

Well, writing an ebook and then being shocked that you were pirated is the same thing. If you don't want to get eaten, stay out of the water.

Piracy isn't going away. Go do something else with your precious time if piracy bothers you, because if you create any sort of IP that anyone is interested in, that IP will be pirated.

Not only are you not owed a living, but you will never stop people who want to experience and share your work for free. Our species shares information, freely. It's the reason civilization exists. To try to limit that is a fast track to censorship and flies in the face of net neutrality. The reason oppressive regimes have always existed is because of their ability to limit information and the free exchange of ideas. Sorry, but I support open and free sharing of ideas over your insistence that you earn $2.74 from every person your reads your opus.

Q: You're a hypocrite. Why don't you write for free if you love free so much?

A: I'm not saying writers shouldn't be able to make a few bucks if they can. I'm saying the world doesn't owe them, so stop whining about it. I consider myself lucky to be read, and even luckier that there are avenues where I can make some money. But I also understand that getting rid of libraries and used book stores and piracy would be a bad thing, even though I don't make money in those venues.

Do you really want to prevent people from reading your work because they can't afford it?

Do you want to miss making a fan because they don't want to spend any money on you until they've tried you for free first?

Do you really think they only value books have is what people pay for them? And that everything available for free has zero value?

Do you believe that berating your customers and potential customers is ever a good thing?

You insist the writer get paid?

Instead, thank the reader.

Because if you get enough readers--no matter how you acquire them--the money will follow.

[CH-Toronto]

I said it in another thread but false copyright claims are the "equivalent" of false rapes. All the incentives are there without any reprimand if proven guilty of falsely accusing. Ridiculous.

[The Beast1]

Copyright in its original form as crafted by the framers of the constitution was reasonable. 20 years and you're done.

The current framework of life allows media companies to sit on ancient work and rent seek in perpetuity.

Sonny Bono can burn in hell.

[weambulance]

If I was limited to a 20 year copyright, I would be significantly less interested in pursuing a career as a novelist. Why should I? It can take a decade to establish enough of a backlog to live off writing alone, and then what, after another 10 years suddenly my income streams start getting cut off? That's horseshit. There would have to be provisions for renewal at minimum, as there were in the original copyright act.

I don't have a particular problem with the 1909 scheme of 28 years + 28 year renewal if the author is still alive. I do think until death + 70 years is getting extreme. Still, copyrights aren't patents. If the children of an author are still actively exercising the copyright to make money, why should they lose that copyright? Think of it in terms of a franchise; would it make sense that a company would suddenly lose its trademark protections and similar just because an arbitrary length of time had passed, while that company was still actively engaged in the business? Things are different if the work is just moldering unused for decades.

The problem with copyright as it stands now mostly revolves around ignorant creative types signing terrible deals with companies who then do a poor job monetizing the IP. Traditional publishing contracts are nightmarish; I would never sign one. All that is changing, though, as technology and the internet are allowing creators to cut out the middlemen. That's why trad publishing is on its death bed.

[eatthishomie]

(03-17-2016 11:29 PM)Paracelsus Wrote:  

http://jakonrath.blogspot.com.au/2016/01...riter.html

If someone does work that provides value on any level, they are absolutely owed fair compensation for it. His logic is flawed and sounds to me like a justification for stealing from people wrapped in libertarian platitudes.

If I stole a loaf of bread from the grocery store and responded to their objections by saying "nobody owes you a living!", would that fly?

[Aristotle]

Roosh has already shown himself to be quite adept at running excellent counter-culture sites. RoK is a fantastic example. I know that Reaxxion failed, but that was due to horrible writing and absolutely no editorial usage, blatant poor grammar, lack of punctuation etc, NOT the concept itself. It was simply poorly managed. I understand why Roosh wasn't personally involved: Lack of passion and interest in videogames, busy with other projects, but just like any business, without proper oversight, management, and accountability, it will fail, no matter the project.

Which is a long way of saying that I believe a business partnership with Roosh andor other manosphere heavyweights would be a great idea. Example: Someone from the forum with great technical skills builds a new Youtube alternative platform. Specialize it to focus on the counter culture stuff. Make it essentially rules free, with the exception of racism or inciting violence (basically anything that violates the law). Also apply standard RoK rules: No gays, etc. Women are fine.

I'd start with Facebook, actually. RVF is already a sort of Manospheres Facebook, which is an excellent start. So far, we basically have:

A Gawker alternative (Return of Kings).
A Facebook alternative (Roosh V Forum)

Since there are already several great alt-news sites, we could start working on other censored topics.

Just a few thoughts.

[puckerman]

Copyright law has become a caricature. It's sad because it clearly does have a productive purpose. There are many issues with copyright nowadays which need addressed.

A big one is the issue of orphaned works. These are works in which it is impossible to find the creator. For example, Joe Professor publishes article in 1960 about lung cancer and cigarettes. I want to ask Joe if I can use some of his work in 2016. I can't find Joe and don't even know if Joe is still alive, so I can't ask him for permission.

Copyrights also need to die when the creators die. We don't need any more cases of parasites profiting from the works created by others. This includes Disney, who will try to extend copyrights again just to protect Mickey Mouse. It also includes the parasitic heirs of Marvin Gaye, who sued over "Blurred Lines."

Of course, Tom Petty's lawsuit was just as ridiculous. I'll never buy anything from him just because of that.

As an aside, Jackie Gleason was apparently considering suing Hanna Barbera because of the Flinstones. But a friend said to him: "Do you want to be responsible for taking Fred Flinstone off the air?" It's a pretty obvious copy of The Honeymooners, but Gleason didn't sue.