The key problem is that copyright infringement by a private individual is regarded by the court as something so serious that it negates the right to privacy. It’s a sign of the twisted values that copyright has succeeded on imposing on many legal systems. It equates the mere copying of a digital file with serious crimes that merit a prison sentence, an evident absurdity.

This is a good example of how copyright’s continuing obsession with ownership and control of digital material is warping the entire legal system in the EU. What was supposed to be simply a fair way of rewarding creators has resulted in a monstrous system of routine government surveillance carried out on hundreds of millions of innocent people just in case they copy a digital file.

  • Chaotic Entropy@feddit.uk
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    5 months ago

    Great… so we’re reaffirming that society’s various structures exist purely for the benefit of monied interests, as ever. Any benefit the regular person sees from arrangements is purely coincidental, your rights stop at the point at which a corporation needs them to.

  • IllNess@infosec.pub
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    5 months ago

    This is so stupid since several thousand devices can use one IP address. NAT exists.

    If I download music in a Starbucks, can they fine the Starbucks CEO then?

    Anyway I hope I hope online artists, and authors are able to use this to sue AI companies for stealing their copyrighted works.

    • QuantumSparkles@sh.itjust.works
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      A good question… I suggest we all start torrenting new release movies and video games exclusively through Starbucks, because I want to know

    • khannie@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      If I download music in a Starbucks, can they fine the Starbucks CEO then?

      This sounds like the kind of grassroots activity I might be interested in.

    • ThunderWhiskers@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Anyway I hope I hope online artists, and authors are able to use this to sue AI companies for stealing their copyrighted works.

      No no no no, this is part of the trickle down economics we’ve been promised for decades. It only works going down, not punching up.

      • IllNess@infosec.pub
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        5 months ago

        Starbucks in the US have asked me to create a login to use their WiFi already. I’m in the US. I guess half way there already.

    • General_Effort@lemmy.worldOP
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      5 months ago

      The background is that French law requires ISPs to retain the IPs of their customer for some time. That way, an IP address can be associated with a customer.

      If I download music in a Starbucks, can they fine the Starbucks CEO then?

      A CEO is an employee. You generally can’t sue employees for this sort of thing. It may be possible to sue the company as a whole for enabling the copyright infringement, but that’s not to do with this case. Perhaps in the future, operators of WiFi-hotspots will be required to use something like Youtube’s Content ID system.

      Anyway I hope I hope online artists, and authors are able to use this to sue AI companies for stealing their copyrighted works.

      They can use this to go after “pirates”. It’s got nothing to do with AI.

      • IllNess@infosec.pub
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        5 months ago

        Machine learning steals copyrighted material from artists and authors. Those servers have IP addresses too.

        Why is a company allowed to track people from taking pirating their copyrighted content, but artists aren’t allowed to do the same to companies making a profit off their work?

        • General_Effort@lemmy.worldOP
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          5 months ago

          Artists are allowed to do the exact same thing. That’s probably not a helpful answer, but it’s the correct answer to your question. You’re making some wrong assumptions about the law, and probably about the economics, as well. Writing a proper explanation would take me quite a while and I’m not sure if it would be appreciated.

          There are some companies, EG Adobe and Shutterstock, that offer “commercially safe” image generators trained on licensed images. Artists who would like to make money by licensing images for AI training can deal with them.

          • x4740N@lemm.ee
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            5 months ago

            Pretty sure getty has stolen publically licenced cc0 images off of Wikipedia and have even started going after the original authors of these images and people using the images even though getting stole them in the first place if I’m remembering my company controversies correctly in relation to stock companies

  • fruitycoder@sh.itjust.works
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    5 months ago

    If copyright is sacrosanct then the creation of data by me is my own personal property and without a contract anyone holding my data is in violation.

    • AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world
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      Every single person in the EU needs to sue on these grounds.

      Also fuck this corporatist statist bullshit. Why the fuck do people keep voting in authoritarians?

    • crank0271@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Afraid to upvote this in case someone later attempts to prove I viewed this data with my eyes

    • rottingleaf@lemmy.zip
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      5 months ago

      Property rights are part of human rights.

      This situation is about preventive protection of someone’s rights warranting real violation of your rights.

      It’s a clear violation of status quo, it’s absolute bullshit, and the officials responsible for this should all spend quality time in jail answering questions about mafia organizations they are affiliated with, and then be flogged on TV, with a lifetime prison sentence after.

  • Brickardo@feddit.nl
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    5 months ago

    The EU and the digital world: sometimes maybe good, sometimes maybe shit. In Spanish we say ‘una de cal y otra de arena’.

    • Imperor@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      GDPR has plenty provisions where other laws or considerations may be more relevant than it, negating it in such cases.

      I still do think the GDPR is extremely important, but it is no silver bullet,sadly.

      • laurelraven@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        5 months ago

        But just in general, how can you have the right to be forgotten without the right to anonymity? They’re inherently bound together

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    5 months ago

    You are clearly a corporate shill so I’m not going to bother responding to any of your bad faith arguments. Your entire comment can be summed up by saying you don’t believe anything a person makes belongs to them. I hope your life in Russia or China is enjoyable.

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    5 months ago

    What am I missing, here? If you do something illegal, they can try to find out who you are? So if the girl I am currently cyberstalking were to go to the police, they could work with my ISP to figure out who I am?

    I’m going to move to a VPN pronto!

    • Sabata@ani.social
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      5 months ago

      Just tell the judge she may have violated your copyright and you can stalk her all you want.

    • _number8_@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      is cyber’stalking’ even illegal? there’s something incredibly harmless about scrolling thru someone’s instagram that showing up outside their house repeatedly doesn’t seem to compare with

  • rottingleaf@lemmy.zip
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    5 months ago

    Top me court says this is not enforceable bar real totalitarian state. EDIT: Also fuck them children of crowd.

  • _number8_@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    lmao copyright isn’t important

    if copyright were abolished worldwide today, we’d be in a happier place. people who buy things generally want to buy from the official source anyway, those official sources might even have to cut prices or (god forbid!) have to make their services better to compete in the market

    • volodya_ilich@lemm.ee
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      5 months ago

      I know right? The very idea of copyright is so fucking abstract, absurd and far-fetched. For the most part, it amounts to:

      “NOOOOO YOU CAN’T PLACE THE ATOMS IN THIS ORDER BECAUSE ANOTHER PERSON DID IT BEFORE YOU!!!11!1!1!” (When it comes to scientific or engineering parents)

      “NOOOO YOU CAN’T MAKE A SURFACE REFLECT THE PHOTONS LIKE THAT, OR EMIT THEM IN THAT PATTERN. THE RIGHT TO DO THAT BELONGS TO SOMEONE ELSE!!!1!!1!” (When it comes to pictoric arts)

      “NOOO YOU CAN’T MAKE THE AIR VIBRATE AT THOSE FREQUENCIES IN THAT PATTERN, SOMEONE DID IT BEFORE YOU AND THEY’RE PAYING ME SO YOU CAN’T DO IT TOO!!!” (Music)

      “NOOO YOU CAN’T PUT LETTERS IN THAT ORDER!! THAT’S ILLEGAL, ANOTHER PERSON DID IT BEFORE!!” (Text and code)

      So yeah, fuck that shit

      • Pacattack57@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        Copyright protects creators and prevents monopolies from abusing the system. Imagine you write a movie to sell and Amazon steals that exact movie but uses their resources to market it as their own and sell over seas.

        You tell me in what world that sounds fair. Only a moron thinks a free market economy actually works.

        Another example is assuming companies act in good faith to protect the market. History has shown that not only do corporations NOT care about rules and regulations but they actively act in the interests of investors and profits.

        It is up to the courts to fix the abuse of the current copyright system and unfortunately they also act in the interests of profits.

        • volodya_ilich@lemm.ee
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          5 months ago

          Imagine you write a movie to sell and Amazon steals that exact movie but uses their resources to market it as their own and sell over seas

          Imagine this thing actually happens because you’re hired for Amazon as a screenwriter and you’re paid a salary of 3k a month making shows that make Amazon 3 million a month, and Amazon, not the screenwriter, owns the rights to the show. Tell me in which world that’s fair.

          Only a moron thinks a free market economy actually works.

          Thank you, that’s why I’m a communist.

          History has shown that not only do corporations NOT care about rules and regulations

          “Copyright rules are necessary because corporations don’t care about rules and regulations” isn’t as solid an argument as you think it is

          • Pacattack57@lemmy.world
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            5 months ago

            You don’t know what you’re talking about and I’m not going to respond to your arguments that you yourself don’t even understand. Contracts of employment don’t have anything to do with copyright. In your own example Amazon owns the IP because they bought it. Something your commie brain wouldn’t understand I guess.

            • volodya_ilich@lemm.ee
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              5 months ago

              Oh I understand it alright, but how is “Amazon owns the IP” a protection of the artist?

    • MigratingtoLemmy@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Becoming better at technology is the gateway to fucking with copyright. As if they’re going to be able to do shit when I torrent their files over some obscure server in the developing world to over here. Fuck copyright and companies who engage in that. Every game, all kinds of media and intellectual property that these companies own should be stolen from them and distributed freely. This should then be followed by severe cyber attacks on said companies to destroy their infrastructure to the extent that they can never hold creations of artists for themselves. Fuck corporate enslavement of artists and creators. I’d much rather pay $200 a month to be distributed directly to artists than pay a single cent for a game/album provided by Microsoft/Spotify (as an example). Now, some companies are better than others. GOG until recently was something I liked (conceptually anyway, since I don’t play games), and Qobuz and Tidal pay their artists better than most. I am OK with these companies. The likes of Amazon and Spotify and Microsoft should be destroyed so badly that they can no longer function in this space. We should spread the word of piracy and digital freedom away from these bastards.

    • TheImpressiveX@lemmy.ml
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      5 months ago

      If copyright were abolished, all FOSS and Creative Commons licenses would be rendered null and void, since they depend on copyright law to work.

      • srecko@lemm.ee
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        5 months ago

        Aren’t they a bandaid to a copyright problem (certain parts of it)? If the copyright is gone the root of the problem would be gone.

        • ඞmir@lemmy.ml
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          5 months ago

          Companies could take and steal as much as they want from smaller artists in that case

          • Sethayy@sh.itjust.works
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            5 months ago

            As will small artists to companies.

            Shit even the value of art would be intristic to am individual, almost impossible to capitalise on, but totally viable for an individual working directly with people

          • volodya_ilich@lemm.ee
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            5 months ago

            As they already do, you mean? Like, look at the recent Spotify scandal, with artists complaining that they don’t earn enough and a higher up of Spotify saying that “nowadays content creation is very inexpensive”, basically implying that Spotify deserves to keep most of the money since the artists’ job is super easy. Most musicians already get most of their money through concerts and merchandising. Copyright already de-facto doesn’t protect the artists nor the scientists.

    • MehBlah@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      I don’t want to see a end to copyright. I want it restored to what it was. Where the creator had a copyright for limited amount of time then everyone had a copyright to the work.

      Now that time is beyond the amount of time that someone inspired by a copyrighted work could create some derivative of it. Unless you think someone inspired as a child would feel like bringing that inspiration to fulfilment as an elderly adult is going to happen often.

      • AdrianTheFrog@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        My ideal copyright would be 15 years or death of the creator or the end of sale/support, whichever is earlier. That would mean that Portal 2 has copyright and Portal doesn’t, which sounds about right.

          • WolfLink@sh.itjust.works
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            5 months ago

            So Disney and Nintendo can keep doing what they are doing but also the same companies can steal the work of smaller artists almost immediately?

            No thanks.

            • Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In@lemmy.world
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              5 months ago

              So Disney and Nintendo can keep doing what they are doing

              After 30 years not even Disney or Nintendo will pay a billion for exclusivity.

              but also the same companies can steal the work of smaller artists almost immediately?

              Let’s make copyright non-transferable. For a company to retain copyright it must employ the creator.

            • Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In@lemmy.world
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              5 months ago

              To retain copyright:-

              $2^n for year n

              $1 for year 1

              $2 for year 2

              $4 for year 3

              $1k for year 10

              $32k for year 15

              $1m for year 20

              $1bn for year 30

              • Soggy@lemmy.world
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                5 months ago

                Why, though? It still pointlessly favors people who already have money. Just get rid of it.

      • volodya_ilich@lemm.ee
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        5 months ago

        Copyright was never about defending the creators, its origin is the industrial revolution and it was a tool of companies to protect “their” inventions (the ones of their workers actually). It was NEVER about defending the small person who actually creates things.

        • MehBlah@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          I disagree. It was put in place so the creators of works and inventions had exclusive rights to that work or invention for 14 years with one renewal for a total of 28 years. Then the copyright passed into the public domain. It was always about protecting the creators. The companies dominance of it came later. Just who came up with the laws and when do you think it was put in place? Just a hint look at the faces on US currency.

          • Hacksaw@lemmy.ca
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            5 months ago

            I think you’re mixing copyright which protects works and patients which protect inventions as well as the timelines.

      • Doomsider@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        Humanity as we know it existed for ten of thousands of years without copyright. Copyright is the anti-thesis to creation. Everything humans create is iterative. Copyright along with the rest of intellectual property seeks to pervert creation for personal gain.

        Art does not need copyright to survive and I would argue that intellectual property is not needed to promote the arts or science. It is designed to do the opposite which is limit creation to the benefit of the individual.

        What makes this worse is the individual is now the corporation. Do you know that a lot of successful artists, particularly musicians, don’t even own their own works?

        Corporations benefit disproportionally by copyright. They have lobbied for decades to further pervert the flawed intention of copyright and intellectual property to the breaking point. Simply put, going down the road of trying to prove who created what was first is wrong.

        Creation does not happen in a vacuum. Pretending that we create is isolation is farcical. We are great because of all those that came before us.

        The telephone was invented by multiple people. The Wright brothers had European counterparts. These issues around intellectual copyright are a lot more complex than we are ready to admit.

        We have billions of people now. Stop trying to pretend any idea, drawing, tune, or writing is unique. Rude wake up call, it is not.

        • Pacattack57@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          Art 100% needs copyright. There is a reason forgery is a crime. Copyright is meant to protect small creators. Yes it is being abused by corporations but the idea that we don’t need it is absurd. Stealing someone’s work and selling as your own is fraud. Plain and simple.

          • Soggy@lemmy.world
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            5 months ago

            I don’t see the predictable effects of dropping IP laws as more harmful than the current reality. The idea is to protect small creators but the implementation does the opposite.

            The solution, as is with so many societal issues, is UBI.

          • Doomsider@lemmy.world
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            5 months ago

            First, how do you account for all the art made before copyright existed. Second, what about all the art created everyday where the creator does not pursue copyright let alone try to enforce their rights in a court of law. These two scenarios disprove your assertion that art needs copyright.

            Perhaps you are under the misconception that artists need to make a living. Art is an expression of our culture and it is not inherently tied to making money. How many people are creating art right now without the intention to sell it. I will clue you in, there is a lot of people, millions who do this everyday.

            The amount of art created for personal use dwarfs that of commercial use by a thousand fold. Copyright does not need to protect these artists at all. Read that, the majority of artists do not need or ever use copyright.

            All art is iterative. This means every piece of art is built upon the art that came before it. Copying is literally how it is done. You know Led Zeppelin just copied a bunch of old blues songs? Oh you didn’t because you think artists create stuff out of thin air apparently.

            Stealing is depriving someone of their property. Copying does not do this at all. You are pushing a false narrative to prop up your flawed argument. Plain and simple.

      • thetreesaysbark@sh.itjust.works
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        5 months ago

        Lol yeah.

        Good luck spending time and money investing in something that you know will have zero legal protection as ‘yours’ after you go to market.

        I personally feel that a copyright does give confidence to product developers to actually develop products. If they felt they weren’t going to get anything for their work they just wouldn’t bother and our tech advancement would stall significantly.

        • Azzu@lemm.ee
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          5 months ago

          But the thing is, we don’t need to develop products. New products are just further resource usage, more greenhouse gasses, more “infinite growth”. Also, a company or individual having “an edge” in competition by developing something first is simply waste of resources. Now only they are allowed to improve upon it, make it more efficient, whatever. If this didn’t exist, yea they’d be incentivized less to create it in the first place, but also now everyone could take it and make it better.

          We have to go away from thinking as individuals in the direction of thinking as humanity.

        • onion@feddit.de
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          5 months ago

          You need money to defend your copyright in court, otherwise it’s pretty meaningless

    • Eccitaze@yiffit.net
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      5 months ago

      Do you want corps just stealing every new idea and product, cloning it, and muscling out the original inventor without paying them a dime? Because abolishing copyright entirely would be an excellent way to do that.

      • volodya_ilich@lemm.ee
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        5 months ago

        That already happens. People who research normally do it under a wage and the invention goes to the company paying the wage. If not, a small inventor doesn’t have the financial means and the lawyers to fight a big company copying their idea. The small person is never defended.

        • Eccitaze@yiffit.net
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          5 months ago

          Copyright is the only thing protecting us from getting absolutely fucked even harder by the rich than we already are, yes.

          • General_Effort@lemmy.worldOP
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            5 months ago

            How does that work? By definition, a rich person owns a lot of property. Therefore, laws that give more power to property owners favor the rich. Copyright is a type of property.