December 17, 2007 at 3:44 pm
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Data Ownership
December 18, 2007 at 2:00 am
I have lots of photographs that I have taken, and presumably own. And if they were of interest to people and I wanted to sell them, would I be allowed? If my bits contain people or places belonging to others, can I profit from them?
I don't know whether this was a figurative question or a genuine musing, but this point has been discussed at length on photography forums and the basic rule is that as long as you were standing on your own, or public property when you take the photo, or you have permission to do so, then you can take and sell any photo at all. This includes photos of people, their houses, business premises, their possessions and even their children, LEGALLY. The issues arise when the subject of your photo objects to its use for a given purpose, and then unless you have a signed model release form, they can attempt to take you to court to have it removed. Usually this is when it shows them in an unjustified negative light, or when they could reasonably expect privacy (e.g. A certain supermodel leaving an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting a couple of years ago.)
An interesting flyer on the subject can be found at http://www.krages.com/ThePhotographersRight.pdf for USA photographers, and http://www.sirimo.co.uk/media/UKPhotographersRights.pdf for UK photographers.
-- Kev
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December 18, 2007 at 6:24 am
That's a nice take on the music bits, but isn't it only true because it's digital? If you buy (license) a painting and it's destroyed in a fire, they aren't going to send you a new one for free! Or should they only charge you for the media since you've already paid for the IP once?
December 18, 2007 at 6:42 am
Not to defend the RIAA but is it not the same when buying software designed for one OS and having to purchase another version ported to a different OS?
The same can be said for purchasing a video game written for Playstation and having to purchase the same game for XBox.
December 18, 2007 at 6:45 am
The human race has spent thousands of years developing its communal consensus on what the concept of property means, all based upon physical assets which entail non-trivial costs to produce and reproduce. Non-physical assets challenge some of the assumptions which evolved during this long effort, and dealing with this remains a work in progress. The all-too-human trait of resistance to change means that attitudes appropriate to physical property are being applied, generally inappropriately, to intellectual property, and this guarantees turmoil and angst until a resolution is achieved. Give it another hundred years; things will eventually settle down.
December 18, 2007 at 8:02 am
If I buy a painting, I don't have a license. I have the right to do what I wish with it, including destroy it. I can copy it if I want, though some value is lost on the copy. That's not true with digital or even some analog creations.
I'm not sure how ports should work. Arguably there is work done to port to another system, it's not just a copy, so perhaps there should be some charge. But I can see your point, if I've paid a license fee + a media fee, then shouldn't I pay something less than full price for a port?
If companies were smart, they'd do this. They could get some nice incremental revenue.
This whole thing could potentially be avoided if I could "return" a scratched copy for a new copy and pay the media fee, which would be the minority of the cost, for a new copy. The problem comes in with me copying it, scratching it and giving it to a friend to "return", repeat. People would take advantage of that, which is why refunds are often refused for digital goods.
On the photographs, thanks for the info, but I wonder if there's an issue commercially. I know that many films have issues if they include a building, piece of art, etc., even if it's on public property. Perhaps because of limited distribution and success of photos, no one's challenged it.
December 18, 2007 at 8:08 am
As for photos, it's black-letter law. If the photo was taken from a spot off of your property, then it can be used commercially without your consent (this is US law). We just had that come up several days ago, and the answer from our attorneys was unambiguous. However, if your company identity is in the photo and the context of its usage by another person implies that you are endorsing them, then it does get ambiguous.
December 18, 2007 at 8:36 am
Steve Jones - Editor (12/18/2007)
If I buy a painting, I don't have a license. I have the right to do what I wish with it, including destroy it. ...
Reminds me of a certain scene from The Magic Christian... :hehe:
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[font="Arial"]Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves or we know where we can find information upon it. --Samuel Johnson[/font]
December 18, 2007 at 10:04 am
It's not the same. A more accurate comparison would be buying a game for the playstation and using some tool to port it and use it on the xbox.
December 18, 2007 at 10:32 am
Steve Jones - Editor (12/18/2007)
If I buy a painting, I don't have a license. I have the right to do what I wish with it, including destroy it.
(This is probably an interesting sideline and not on topic but I thought I would throw this in.)
Steve you have to be a bit careful here. There is case law about art that clearly states what can and can not be done with paintings. In one case the painter felt that his work was not as he really wanted it to be and that it was incomplete. He wanted to put more into a picture that was already sold.
His case was based on the understanding that his work was a creation of his and that if his creation was not complete that he had a legal right to go into the home of the now owner of the painting and alter it. The court at that time allowed the artist to update the picture without the consent of the owner. I think it was under the right of expression interpretation of law.
In the end the owner had a little difference in the picture and did not like is quite as much for the art value, but the overall value of the picture was huge since it was now an object of case law and was of interest.
Not all gray hairs are Dinosaurs!
December 18, 2007 at 11:12 am
Frank Carrelli (12/18/2007)
Not to defend the RIAA but is it not the same when buying software designed for one OS and having to purchase another version ported to a different OS?The same can be said for purchasing a video game written for Playstation and having to purchase the same game for XBox.
Perhaps but they're not going to come put you in jail if you happen to take your copy of halo over to your neighbor's house and play it over there....
Besides - their position is inconsistent. They have NO issue with you tape-recording songs off of the radio, and yet they have issues with you making a compilation CD from other CD's.
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Your lack of planning does not constitute an emergency on my part...unless you're my manager...or a director and above...or a really loud-spoken end-user..All right - what was my emergency again?
December 18, 2007 at 11:19 am
For the concept of data ownership to be simplified, we have to simplify the concept of data work first.
If a person spends time and effort to make a wooden chair, nobody in our society will object if that person wants to be paid for the chair's ownership.
If a person spends time thinking about a chair, drawing designs up on paper, performing tests on the subjects of comfort and durability and aesthetics, that person has again spent time and effort on it, but duplicating the result takes very little effort at all.
(I'm using chairs as an example because it probably doesn't have the emotional charge that music/software has.)
The difference is purely in terms of duplication of the effort.
Money is a symbol of respect/fear, admiration/need, and perception of effort. You need all three for something to have value. Since the effort of duplicating the results of intellectual effort requires very little effort itself, it does not fit the perception of effort criterion, and thus can only have value when the respect/fear and/or admiration/need aspects are artificially amplified to increase the ratio.
If the designer of chairs were greatly respected by most people, and the chair designs were greatly admired, they would have value and would be paid for.
If the designer has no respect and cannot generate fear of the consequences of non-payment, the designs will not be paid for, or will demand very low prices. Quite probably low enough that the initial effort of designing a chair will not be done. Of course, an extraordinarily high admiration/need factor can overcome this, at least partially, even in the absense of respect/fear and perceived effort.
Intellectual work, like chair design (or music, software, et al), follows slightly different laws than physical work, since supply can be, essentially, infinite, in our current technological state (pretty much since the advent of the printing press). Thus, supply vs demand economics applied to intellectual work breaks down very rapidly. (Of course, physical products follow the expanded laws of respect/fear + admiration/need + effort, since those are simply expansions on the concept of supply and demand, plus the concept of respect/fear which is missing from some economic theories, but which accounts for theft, etc.)
Thus, intellectual work either needs to paid arbitrarily, or the concept of money needs a radical shift, to truly support an economy in which initial effort can be rewarded even if duplication effort is small.
And that is probably more than anyone wants to read about this.
- Gus "GSquared", RSVP, OODA, MAP, NMVP, FAQ, SAT, SQL, DNA, RNA, UOI, IOU, AM, PM, AD, BC, BCE, USA, UN, CF, ROFL, LOL, ETC
Property of The Thread
"Nobody knows the age of the human race, but everyone agrees it's old enough to know better." - Anon
December 18, 2007 at 11:22 am
A few months ago a Sony spokeswoman said the same thing that the act of ripping a song was in itself piracy. The thing that I don't get about the RIAA's position, not that it is overflowing in common sense, is that if the act of ripping a CD is piracy, then you cannot use portable music players, except for portable CD players. Maybe it'd be legal if you bought all of your music from iTunes for use on your iPod, but I have yet to buy a single song from them.
Therefor Apple is an enabler of piracy and the RIAA should be suing Steve Jobs et al for a bazillion dollars. 😀
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[font="Arial"]Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves or we know where we can find information upon it. --Samuel Johnson[/font]
December 18, 2007 at 11:29 am
But it's now in the definition of what is being sold. In the case of the chairs - if you sell the chair to someone, and they use it as a flowerholder - can the chair maker sue you for misusing the chair? What if they decide retroactively that you should pay a fee for each time you sit in that chair?
RIAA is playing the same trick ATT tried in the seventies with phones. They would "sell" you a phone, but then tried to sue folks who moved and took their handset with them. ATT's position was that they sold you the USE of the phone but the handset was not yours, so you had no "ownership" of the phone. The problem is - they didn't specify that at the time of purchase.
I think this is very much the same - RIAA wants to control HOW you have access to something they sold to you, and the position is all over the place (and not consistent). And they want to do it AFTER the fact, which is distasteful.
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Your lack of planning does not constitute an emergency on my part...unless you're my manager...or a director and above...or a really loud-spoken end-user..All right - what was my emergency again?
December 18, 2007 at 11:49 am
Here is another hypothetical question. If I were to buy one of those chairs GSquared was selling and I liked it so much that I decided to make one myself. I buy all the lumber and materials needed and I make an exact copy. Is this still my chair? If I were to resell who gets the proceeds? To make it really interesting, let's say there were some patent designs that got copied in the process. Now we have patent laws to contend with. Luckily I am a better programmer than a craftsman so I will not be making or selling any chairs anytime soon!
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