Life In 19x19

I think you're wrong about limited licenses, Bantari. If I buy a gun, I cannot legally shoot you with it unless you've been extremely naughty. That does not imply that we only buy a limited license to the gun. The same goes for houses. Ownership is compatible with legal restrictions on what you do with a thing. What we do buy limited licenses to are software and a few other things, because that is explicitly limited by the seller.

But let me circle back to a point: copyright doesn't represent the authors' intentions. It is a legal default. But it's also not apt to say "it's just a default, you can always make your own EULA/contract". Of course, you literally can do that, as evidence by the GPL, BSD license and all that cool stuff, but I thought of another way existing law privileges the default arrangement.

Copyright law has an enormous caselaw in existence that creates precedents, so that you know how it will be enforced. It's not always consistent or obvious, which is why we have so many high-dollar lawyers running around in their suits. But still, when you release a work under standard contract, you aren't reinventing the wheel.

On the other hand, if you use a non-standard contract, whether creative commons or a EULA, you are reinventing the wheel. If you're the first, there is no case law that directly governs how your contract will be enforced. If you don't have the world's shiniest lawyer in the absolute best suit, your contract probably won't be written in such a way that it can withstand all the challenges you want it to, and give you the results you expect. You're taking a kind of legal risk by opting out of the default, and you might be incurring much greater legal costs.

So I conclude that copyright is not so much about authors' intentions as it is about a legal regime that we impose on everyone, authors included. And in the case of books, I don't think it's a terrible regime. But I just don't see what it has to do with protecting the wishes of authors, some of whom would probably be horrified by retroactive post-mortem extensions of their copyright and all that.

P.S. There was a recent ruling that you can't resell software that you have bought. The issue is not that you can't make copies. It's that you can't resell shrink-wrapped uninstalled boxed up software if the license forbids it. If you don't read that and think "get the axe" you're either more peaceful than me or I worry about your sense of justice.

Redundant wrote:

gogameguru wrote: This meant that the pirated version of most music was several orders of magnitude more convenient. You can forget about the price. After that iTunes (as just one example) came along and changed some things, if not all...

There's also the fact that getting digital music legally in some formats is nearly impossible. For example, I've never come across a place that sells FLAC, my preferred audio format.

Seriously? You haven't looked much. Perhaps you have never found the _music you want_ in FLAC, but plenty of sites sell FLAC, notably classical music labels and dealers.

Bantari wrote:If the publisher cannot hope to sell the books at a profit, then the author does not get paid... and most likely - the book does not get published.

This is the core of the argument I am trying to make... publishers, to publish a book, need to have a hope of making profit on this book... otherwise - they are not interested. And if a book does not get published, then the authors lose out, but also the readers lose out. And the publishers lose out. Its an all-around lose-lose-lose situation.

Believe it or not, that's not always true. Publishers need to publish a certain number of books, and, while they want to make profits from all of them, sometimes they publish books knowing that they won't make a profit. And, of course, they _know_ that only a certain percentage of the books they publish will turn a profit no matter what.

Bantari wrote:
This is the modern world. We used to sell stuff unconditionally a 100 years ago, now we just sell limited licenses. And that goes for everything... Take a house for example... You buy a house, but you cannot just buldoze it and put a factory in its place... you need additional licenses for that. You cannot even build a basement entrance without a special permit (I know, I tried). The same goes for books, movies, music, and everything else.

On the other hand, remember that copyright is fairly recent. 150 years ago, there was no copyright, and especially for books, there was a strong movement of American and English authors to establish copyright, because their books were being pirated in the other English-speaking country.

kirkmc wrote:sometimes they publish books knowing that they won't make a profit.

I'd love to hear more about this. I get that they expect book sales to have high variance, so that many books lose money, while others make a good bit, but intentionally selling a book that won't profit is intriguing.

kirkmc wrote:Seriously? You haven't looked much. Perhaps you have never found the _music you want_ in FLAC, but plenty of sites sell FLAC, notably classical music labels and dealers.

Really?! You're going to call me out on this. Google "FLAC music store". You get nothing. Google "music store with FLAC". Again nothing.

I said that there isn't a site with a reasonable selection of music in FLAC.

jts wrote:

Redundant wrote:

jts wrote:How much hd space do you have such that storing all your music as flac is not an issue?

Right now I have over 1 terabyte of free hard drive space and 6.34 terabytes total.

Well, if I had that much space I would probably prefer flac too. Do you keep a separate music library for portable devices?

Nah, I just rockboxed an iPod to be able to play FLAC files. If I hadn't have done that, I probably would have just converted over to ALAC, but still keep my library in flac.

Redundant wrote:

kirkmc wrote:Seriously? You haven't looked much. Perhaps you have never found the _music you want_ in FLAC, but plenty of sites sell FLAC, notably classical music labels and dealers.

Really?! You're going to call me out on this. Google "FLAC music store". You get nothing. Google "music store with FLAC". Again nothing.

I said that there isn't a site with a reasonable selection of music in FLAC.

I barely know what you are talking about, but 2 secs of googling gave me e.g. this: http://www.last.fm/group/Free+Lossless+ ... 8/_/276748

Is that what you are looging for?

tj86430 wrote:

Redundant wrote:

kirkmc wrote:Seriously? You haven't looked much. Perhaps you have never found the _music you want_ in FLAC, but plenty of sites sell FLAC, notably classical music labels and dealers.

Really?! You're going to call me out on this. Google "FLAC music store". You get nothing. Google "music store with FLAC". Again nothing.

I said that there isn't a site with a reasonable selection of music in FLAC.

I barely know what you are talking about, but 2 secs of googling gave me e.g. this: http://www.last.fm/group/Free+Lossless+ ... 8/_/276748

Is that what you are looging for?

The first link there is for a subscription service. The second is for independent bands, and has pretty bad selection. The third is pretty much the same.

I lament the fact that most labels don't care about getting music out digitally in lossless formats, so the only way to get music in that format is to either buy cds and rip them, pirate, go to small niche stores like the ones from the list, or go through individual artists pages. The pirates definitely have better "customer" service here.

Redundant wrote:

kirkmc wrote:Seriously? You haven't looked much. Perhaps you have never found the _music you want_ in FLAC, but plenty of sites sell FLAC, notably classical music labels and dealers.

Really?! You're going to call me out on this. Google "FLAC music store". You get nothing. Google "music store with FLAC". Again nothing.

I said that there isn't a site with a reasonable selection of music in FLAC.

http://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/

http://www.passionato.com/

http://www.chandos.net/

A number of sites that even sell 96/24 FLAC files:

http://www.macworld.com/article/160651/ ... e_mac.html

And so on...

kirkmc wrote:

Redundant wrote:

kirkmc wrote:Seriously? You haven't looked much. Perhaps you have never found the _music you want_ in FLAC, but plenty of sites sell FLAC, notably classical music labels and dealers.

Really?! You're going to call me out on this. Google "FLAC music store". You get nothing. Google "music store with FLAC". Again nothing.

I said that there isn't a site with a reasonable selection of music in FLAC.

http://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/

http://www.passionato.com/

http://www.chandos.net/

A number of sites that even sell 96/24 FLAC files:

http://www.macworld.com/article/160651/ ... e_mac.html

And so on...

And the selection is abysmal. I picked 3 of the more popular of the bands I listen to, and found one album from one of the bands, all the albums of another, and nothing from the most popular of the 3.

I'm not looking for a hundred small websites to crawl for music I don't listen to. I want something like the iTunes store that sells in good quality.

I'll concede that I originally said that I hadn't found a place that sold FLAC, and you have provided that. On the other hand, I meant a place that gets even close to the selection found on pirate websites. The pirates have much better selection and quality than the legitimate sotres here.

Redundant wrote:
And the selection is abysmal. I picked 3 of the more popular of the bands I listen to, and found one album from one of the bands, all the albums of another, and nothing from the most popular of the 3.

I'm not looking for a hundred small websites to crawl for music I don't listen to. I want something like the iTunes store that sells in good quality.

I'll concede that I originally said that I hadn't found a place that sold FLAC, and you have provided that. On the other hand, I meant a place that gets even close to the selection found on pirate websites. The pirates have much better selection and quality than the legitimate sotres here.

I will repeat what I said above, because you clearly didn't read it:

"Perhaps you have never found the _music you want_ in FLAC, but plenty of sites sell FLAC, notably classical music labels and dealers."

Music you don't listen to, but that's exactly what I said. The selection is "abysmal" because it's not the music you like.

You won't find anything approaching iTunes (or Amazon) with FLAC. However, individual labels and specialist stores have made it a selling point.

Interestingly, in many cases, it's cheaper to buy CDs than to buy FLACs, at least if CDs are discounted. Since CDs are lossless, that will satisfy most people, for now.

Redundant wrote:Google "FLAC music store". You get nothing.

Try not capitalizing.

kirkmc wrote:

Redundant wrote:
And the selection is abysmal. I picked 3 of the more popular of the bands I listen to, and found one album from one of the bands, all the albums of another, and nothing from the most popular of the 3.

I'm not looking for a hundred small websites to crawl for music I don't listen to. I want something like the iTunes store that sells in good quality.

I'll concede that I originally said that I hadn't found a place that sold FLAC, and you have provided that. On the other hand, I meant a place that gets even close to the selection found on pirate websites. The pirates have much better selection and quality than the legitimate sotres here.

I will repeat what I said above, because you clearly didn't read it:

"Perhaps you have never found the _music you want_ in FLAC, but plenty of sites sell FLAC, notably classical music labels and dealers."

Music you don't listen to, but that's exactly what I said. The selection is "abysmal" because it's not the music you like.

You won't find anything approaching iTunes (or Amazon) with FLAC. However, individual labels and specialist stores have made it a selling point.

Interestingly, in many cases, it's cheaper to buy CDs than to buy FLACs, at least if CDs are discounted. Since CDs are lossless, that will satisfy most people, for now.

I read it, and even said that in the context of my original statement, you are correct. In the context of what I meant to convey your information is as useful as nipples on a breastplate.

daal wrote:

Redundant wrote:Google "FLAC music store". You get nothing.

flac music store.jpg

Try not capitalizing.

None of those results are what I'm looking for either.

I've revised my requirement to be a store that sells flac, with even a tenth of the music I listen to.