NationStates Jolt Archive

I would humbly request all regional delegates to give serious consideration to this important piece of legislation. In order to advance the intellectual freedom of all our citizens, we must break down the system by which industry restricts our freedom of expression, exploits creative talent, and hinders the free exchange of art and knowledge.

It seems fine enough except fo the fact that I don't see it's pointl.

I have to agree, I see no point except to turn illegal pirating of music and such into a legal form of creative expression and art as you so said, so we'd have to oppose any type of proposal of this sort.

Lance Miller
Commonwealth of Erectobia

In order to advance the intellectual freedom of all our citizens, we must break down the system by which industry restricts our freedom of expression, exploits creative talent, and hinders the free exchange of art and knowledge.

Perhaps you could rephrase this to:

"In order to starve the artists which provide the intellectual freedom of all our citizens, we must break down the system by which they can make a living, and unhinder the enchange of free stuff, thereby killing art and knowledge, as creative geniuses decide to get real jobs to pay their bills."

I was going to pull up the existing UN copyright proposal, but it a) doesn't actually say anything and b) betrays a basic failure to understand how copyright works. Jesus wept.

Ah, the good ol' UCPL.

*has a quick rummage through the UN files store*

Here we go:

http://www.nationstates.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=117492&highlight=

In order to advance the intellectual freedom of all our citizens, we must break down the system by which industry restricts our freedom of expression, exploits creative talent, and hinders the free exchange of art and knowledge.

Perhaps you could rephrase this to:

"In order to starve the artists which provide the intellectual freedom of all our citizens, we must break down the system by which they can make a living, and unhinder the enchange of free stuff, thereby killing art and knowledge, as creative geniuses decide to get real jobs to pay their bills."

Yes. File-sharing-induced starvation is the obvious explanation for why pop stars are all so skinny. And why there are so few creative geniuses making a living in art and entertainment today. It would be a terrible violation of artists' rights to destroy a system which sends most of the earnings from their work to Wall Street and Madison Avenue, rejects musical talent in favor of T'n'A, and marginalizes creativity in favor of marketability. Without insider deals and brute-force promotion, radio stations might be tragically compelled to seek out new trends and new talent, and play what music fans through file-sharing have shown an actual inclination to hear. Clearly, the world as we know it would fall apart at the seams. The creative community would be reduced to the low, wretched conditions it suffered under throughout the entire human history prior to the late 20th Century, back before any art or knowledge was ever produced by human beings.

Thanks for enlightening me with your wisdom.

Yes. File-sharing-induced starvation is the obvious explanation for why pop stars are all so skinny. And why there are so few creative geniuses making a living in art and entertainment today. It would be a terrible violation of artists' rights to destroy a system which sends most of the earnings from their work to Wall Street and Madison Avenue, rejects musical talent in favor of T'n'A, and marginalizes creativity in favor of marketability. Without insider deals and brute-force promotion, radio stations might be tragically compelled to seek out new trends and new talent, and play what music fans through file-sharing have shown an actual inclination to hear. Clearly, the world as we know it would fall apart at the seams. The creative community would be reduced to the low, wretched conditions it suffered under throughout the entire human history prior to the late 20th Century, back before any art or knowledge was ever produced by human beings.

Thanks for enlightening me with your wisdom.

*applauds loudly and at length*

I don't believe the UN should be legislating on such a minor issue. It was bad enough when the *spit* UCPL got passed.

Art Randolph
Speaker for Legal Affairs

Oh, woe is me. All those poor emo bands can't get signed because they don't have breasts, and their songs aren't about "smacking bitches." Surely, the world is in peril, and the only way to solve it is by destroying the forces that wish to chain down intellectual property and limit access to information.

You know, if it wasn't such a terrible idea, I might actually go for it.

See, fact of the matter is, this isn't about pop stars and radio stations. This entire battle comes down to the power of the dollar. Your legislation hopes to make good music available to everyone by allowing tradeable networks to be developed, but that won't happen. Furthermore, in preventing regulation of these networks, you bring about the distinct disadvantage of rights violation.

First, the lack of solvency. Your plan assumes that allowing music to be traded will automatically lead to an increase in production of "non-popular" music. However, the sad reality is that these networks would only go further in silencing these voices. People make music to pay the bills, and you can't pay the bills when people are trading your music online for free. No matter what the music is, you can't make it without money. You need instruments, you need recording time, you need distribution networks. And none of those things can happen if people don't buy the CDs. Which they won't when they can just hop online and download the music for free.

So great, we've killed off the same music we're trying to protect. And hey, at the same time, we're punishing people who already have legitimate albums and contracts. Now, instead of being able to earn the maximum amount from their music (the amount taken off the top by the recording industry is irrelevant, even if they get screwed, the fact of the matter is they make even less money when the recording industry makes less money), they have to deal with their intellectual property being flaunted on untouchable file networks.

There you go. Two solid reasons not to vote for the proposal: first, it kills off the very industry it tries to protect, second, it punishes an already weakened recording industry. Ouch.

Sincerely yours,
Daniel M. Hillaker
Minister of Foreign Affairs

While both sides make pretty damn good arguments, we feel it important to recognise that file-sharing as it stands is a system living at the fringes of legality, and this shapes its influence a great deal. If legalised, file-sharing would quickly become much more widespread and efficient; businesses, more vulnerable to legal attack than individuals currently, would also find ways to get in on the act. It's hard to say exactly how this would affect things, but our feeling is that copyright is a personal right and weakening this right would be a gateway to the exploitation of individuals.

Rehochipe considers the UCPL to be essentially meaningless, as it has clearly got copyrights hopelessly mixed up with patents - half the point of copyright is that it doesn't need to be applied for. Accordingly, we recognise copyright law for lifetime - and no further. (We do not allow copyrights to be held by corporations, only groups of listed individuals).

Yes. File-sharing-induced starvation is the obvious explanation for why pop stars are all so skinny. And why there are so few creative geniuses making a living in art and entertainment today. It would be a terrible violation of artists' rights to destroy a system which sends most of the earnings from their work to Wall Street and Madison Avenue, rejects musical talent in favor of T'n'A, and marginalizes creativity in favor of marketability. Without insider deals and brute-force promotion, radio stations might be tragically compelled to seek out new trends and new talent, and play what music fans through file-sharing have shown an actual inclination to hear. Clearly, the world as we know it would fall apart at the seams. The creative community would be reduced to the low, wretched conditions it suffered under throughout the entire human history prior to the late 20th Century, back before any art or knowledge was ever produced by human beings.

Thanks for enlightening me with your wisdom.



I suppose you can justify thievery however you like. Don't fool yourself into thinking this proposal benefits anyone but those who don't want to pay for someone else's labour, though.

If the system develops crap (and I agree it does), file sharing still isn't the answer.

@ mild cheddar:

Could you be more specific? Is this proposal meant to allow people to trade copyrighted material. Or is it meant to ensure people who want their matterial to be traded that it will remain that way. Perhaps you should have speant more time drafting this proposal.

@ mild cheddar:

Could you be more specific? Is this proposal meant to allow people to trade copyrighted material. Or is it meant to ensure people who want their matterial to be traded that it will remain that way. Perhaps you should have speant more time drafting this proposal.

The Holy Empire of Gethamane's Legal Bureau gets the understanding that this proposal will do nothing except permit people to distribute material that they themselves own the copyright to over the Internet. Gethamane has no Internet that is available to the public, thus making us in violation of the wording of this proposal. We are also not interested in putting forth the funds to create an Internet. But on the other hand, we have no laws indicating that a person cannot create and distribute original works.

Also, Gethamane is confused as to the reactionary stance that people seem to take on this subject. It seems as if opposition is formed because P2P software can be used to transmit material in violation of copyright laws... Which is illogical, at best. While the wording is distressingly loose, the intent obviously is not to make copyrighted material freely available to everyone.

However, the argument is moot as Gethamane will be vetoing this proposal for a variety of reasons. Rep. Mild Cheddar, in the future I highly recommend submitting a draft of your proposal to these forums first so we can hammer out the details.

Link to proposal: http://www.nationstates.net/cgi-bin/index.cgi/page=UN_proposal1/match=file-sharing

The universal file-sharing act

Category: Human Rights; A resolution to improve worldwide human and civil rights.
Strength: Significant

Proposed by: Mild Cheddar


Description: Whereas the world's music and software industries are controlled by a consortium of powerful corporations who limit artistic freedom and consumer choice.

Whereas internet technology now makes it possible for individuals to share their intellectual and artistic creations freely with others around the world.

It is hereby resolved that no UN member state or licensed business may infringe upon the intellectual freedom of individuals to create, modify, or share computer programs and files for personal use.

This resolution shall not be construed to affect existing intellectual property law in regard to the authorship of musical compositions, or the distribution and sale of recorded media such as compact discs.


Voting Ends: Sat Mar 20 2004

I see a continuity problem. This proposal first establishes the right of all persons to distribute any files freely, then states that copyright law will still be upheld. You can't really have it both ways without more clarification. You can either give people the right to transmit data freely or uphold the concept of intellectual property -- you cannot, as I see it, do both. Perhaps you forgot to state somewhere that transmission of copyrighted files could still be illegalized?

@ Santin
Well, this clause makes up for it, in part:

This resolution shall not be construed to affect existing intellectual property law in regard to the authorship of musical compositions, or the distribution and sale of recorded media such as compact discs.

THE POINT: I am generously assuming Mild Cheddar has good intentions with this proposal. As such, I don't believe Mild Cheddar is actually trying to have it both ways. I think the idea is that anyone can share their own artistic creations with anyone they choose without the government or a corporation interfering. However, that right does not give them permission to do so with someone else's creations.

THE DIATRIBE: However, the clause only references musical compositions. Ironically, the presence of this clause is one of the reasons Gethamane will not be approving this proposal. Because the clause only references musical compositions, and the remainder of the proposal includes all materials, this proposal will essentially legalize the free distribution of computer software, or any material that is not a musical composition.

Even if this clause was changed to reference all copyrighted materials, we would still oppose the proposal because it would be pointless legislation. I assume (and may be quickly corrected) that the vast majority of countries that permit "intellectual property" also have copyright laws. These laws, according to the UCPL Resolution, are standardized between UN Member-States already.

So, assuming all that to be true, what would this proposal do? It would make it legal for anyone who possessed intellectual property to freely distribute that property without corporate or government interferance (though, the person could, at their option, volunteer such property to the government or corporation). Could someone explain to me how this is different from laws that currently exist?

I was going to pull up the existing UN copyright proposal, but it a) doesn't actually say anything and b) betrays a basic failure to understand how copyright works. Jesus wept.

Jesus Wept, you know, I've only ever heard that phrase in Peter F Hamillton books, have you read them, Sci-Fi, very class-y, Nights Dawn Trilogy, the Nano Flower, Another Chance At Eden...

Where am I, oh, look, Edenists!

(Hops and skips away across the Habitats curving grassy plain)

Why is every-one looking at me... :roll:

- The Rep of Komokom.

Just make sure you don't step on the Kiint while you're there, Komokom.

Never heard of him. We just find that it gets less strange looks than our other favourite exasperated comment, 'God fuck a monkey.'

We could always use the exclamation 'God's Brother'. Though 'God f--- a monkey' is quite sublime.

I'm quite a fan of 'nonsense on stilts'.

I'm partial to Jesus Tap-Dancing Christ. It slips in kind of nicely, as in "Please tell me you didn't- oh Jesus Tap Dancing Christ you did."

Sincerely yours,
Daniel M. Hillaker
Minister of Foreign Affairs

The Holy Church of Psychotropics refuses to endorse this measure. While our entire country uses oss ( that's open source software for the uninformed/weak of mind ), we feel that violating the copyrights of the original authors is a violation of numerous national/international/UN laws.

If, and ONLY if, the author gives permission to distribute his/her 0's and 1's in an oss manner according to that wonderful fictional "GPL" or any of our real world versions of such .... can the distribution of said material be considered legitimate for sharing.

Cardinal Torvalds, Minister of Technolgy for all Psychotropics