[TODO] https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/
Letting Society Advance Though Art and Innovation #
This video from Tom Scott on YouTube is a very good intro to everything I’ll be talking about on this page, I’ll assume you’ve watched it so that I don’t have to repeat everything that he says here.
What is Copyright? #
[TODO]
What’s Wrong With that? #
How do we fix it? #
I think to further address any issues we first need to look into how these issues have come to exist. In general, as a society advances new issues will arise. Computers and the Internet have shown us just how incredibly things can progress and how amazing un-hindered, open information flow can change the world. The Internet has served as an educational tool of unparalleled utility to my generation and has allowed me to learn things that I otherwise would have never had access to. Of course this also means the same for bad actors. Though acting in bad faith also now have the same unparalleled access to personal information of the masses and individuals can now use their anonymity and an Internet connection to do harm both to individuals via cyberbullying and trolling, but also to businesses as we move to a world that more heavily relies on ecommerce and the digital information they store becomes increasingly sensitive.
Unfortunately, the law is often far to slow or far to fast to react, leading to laws that simultaneously fail to protect our rights as smaller creators and punish many to harshly.(1)
…
Today, the most obvious example of this is the Right to Repair movement, a movement that has computer hackers and farmers fighting side by side to protect consumer rights.
Copyright, DMCA
Patents
HEVC is heavily patented. There are no less than 7,200 patents covering this compression method. This includes 39 patents from Apple: CN 03816739.5, 200810082232.0, 201210009977.0; DE 603 34 804.1, 603 41 992.5, 603 41 994.1; FR 1532746, 2326019, 2328283; GB 1532746, 2326019, 2328283; IT 1532746, 2326019, 2328283; JP 5385233; KR 850,810, 1,210,015; and US 7,292,636, 7,339,991, 7,551,674, 7,769,084, 8,090,023, 8,090,026, 8,094,724, 8,094,729, 8,630,339, 8,711,924, 8,737,462, 8,737,468, 8,737,484, 8,743,951, 8,817,883, 8,831,106, 8,837,580, 8,837,597, 8,934,546, 8,934,551, 8,942,287. This should be enough to discourage any company from using HEIF, even if it does offer a better compression versus file size ratio
https://www.hackerfactor.com/blog/index.php?/archives/833-HEIC-Yeah.html
Patent trolls
Societal standards of art, making fun of something because it’s different
What we should do about this:
[TODO] Marvel, Pink Floyd, and Minecraft Vs Web comics, indie, and Minetest.
Piracy? #
Because these many of these sites are tecnically hosting illegal content, they tend to change domains a lot. One of the better ways to be sure you’re not going to a Honeypot, a fake site used to catch people, is to check what domain the Wikipedia article refers to, for example for scihub:
Open Directories #
https://www.reddit.com/r/opendirectories/
- By 'slow' I'm primarily referring to the lack of or incompetence of consumer data protection law. GDPR is definitely a step in the right direction on this; however, that is both only for the EU and was implemented far too late. By 'fast' I had the DMCA in mind, which is wildly considered to be both overreaching and to harsh. Simultaneously, we lack real power as consumers, copyright is a game the rich can play with expensive laywers and the small creator can't afford to defend.