My take on B5

[hypatia]

Yes, I have actually xeroxed pages from a text that is a recommended text for a course I teach, and have been told that it was legal. But then was told "even if it weren't, they wouldn't risk the business they are doing with the college already" so I was left assuming it wasn't a very 'legal' kind of "legal".

As far as my purchasing each and every math journal that had information about my topic, that is beyond laughable. And if I hadn't made such copies, my defense judges wouldn't have taken my research as being real. I can't really emphasize enough that this was simply how everyone did these things (even in the colleges that had the texts, I suspect).

Your mentor in particular would want to peruse the works to make sure you hadn't missed anything major that should be followed up on in greater detail, or had misunderstood anything. Now, I used this material in my thesis, but did credit the sources I used. I did not necessarily list every source copied (again, this would have been considered improper by the academic world).

My guess is that since the entire purpose of such research texts was to make research possible, there would be no problem from the publishers. After all, what were the books for, other than to communicate with as many mathematicians as possible the contents of others' research?

 

[Triple F]

There is another point concerning the legal but not too legal stance. Don’t know about where you live but over here every library (public and university) have photocopiers in them. So they don’t seem to view it as illegal (or accept the realities of the situation) and provide the very equipment to do the copying of text and images.

 

[Ranger1]

i went out this morning and bought a couple of pre-owned PC games. we can get into the publishers view of the trade as "theft" if you want but i thought it would be more interesting to mention that one of them was a 2 disc game that only had 1 in the box, what did i do? i downloaded a disc image for the first disc then used it to install the game.

 

[Galahad]

Walking in to the middle of this after being away at SU Camp for a week... but my attitude is that if a distributor hasn't been forthcoming in bringing it out (and I'm talking mainly mp3's here or antiquated overlooked cult shows here), I procure things by other means.

However when the distributor finally gets round to bringing out said item... I go back and get it from official channels.

Seriously how hard can it be in the modern era for companies to make programmes and music available for download? Surely they aren't losing much by just having it listed for download?

Why don't they just forget focus groups and just unleash the media so that the consumer can decide what is worth buying?

It's not really rocket science!

Another thing I resent is the whole idea of forcing people to buy an entire album just to get certain established tracks (I'm not talking about using bonus tracks as a reward for buying an album... I think that's fair. I'm talking about restricting big hits... that you know people want to buy and using them to force people to buy the chaff), or worse, only letting people buy an entire album.

 

[Galahad]

i went out this morning and bought a couple of pre-owned PC games. we can get into the publishers view of the trade as "theft" if you want.

Well their opinion is just flat wrong on that and we do well to at the very least utterly ignore their whining on that particular issue... unless we are going to start suing people for having second hand book stalls and charity shops as well!

 

[Jan]

There is another point concerning the legal but not too legal stance. Don’t know about where you live but over here every library (public and university) have photocopiers in them. So they don’t seem to view it as illegal (or accept the realities of the situation) and provide the very equipment to do the copying of text and images.

Sigh...this stuff is so easy to look up I can only assume that arguements like this are just for sport.

Fair use explicitly allows use of copyrighted materials for educational purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Rather than listing exact limits of fair use, copyright law provides four standards for determination of the fair use exemption:

- Purpose of use: Copying and using selected parts of copyrighted works for specific educational purposes qualifies as fair use, especially if the copies are made spontaneously, are used temporarily, and are not part of an anthology.
- Nature of the work: For copying paragraphs from a copyrighted source, fair use easily applies. For copying a chapter, fair use may be questionable.
- Proportion/extent of the material used: Duplicating excerpts that are short in relation to the entire copyrighted work or segments that do not reflect the "essence" of the work is usually considered fair use.
- The effect on marketability: If there will be no reduction in sales because of copying or distribution, the fair use exemption is likely to apply. This is the most important of the four tests for fair use (Princeton University).

Emphasis mine.

Walking in to the middle of this after being away at SU Camp for a week... but my attitude is that if a distributor hasn't been forthcoming in bringing it out (and I'm talking mainly mp3's here or antiquated overlooked cult shows here), I procure things by other means.

Classic sense of entitlement. You want what you want when you want it and to hell with other people.

we can get into the publishers view of the trade as "theft" if you want

I've never seen any publisher or distributer ever postulate that the second-hand market is infringement. So why bring it up?

Jan

 

[Galahad]

Classic sense of entitlement. You want what you want when you want it and to hell with other people.

Jan

Congratulations! You've made an awfully big assumption based on one sentence.

It's not quite as simple as that. I can wait several years... but we are talking a ridiculous amount of time. For example the theme tune to Hornblower. I like it. It will never get released because US TV execs pulled the plug on the show as it was quite expensive and not making a big a hit in the US as it was here in the UK.

I had to buy a retro album by the artist Zoe because I wanted the mp3 of the one track she had a hit with and it wasn't available online and probably never will be.

I bought the Prince of Egypt original movie soundtrack from abroad... because I wanted to get certain tracks that weren't available on the other two albums that were available here.

I'm still waiting for the dispute between the Beatles and Apple to resolve enough for me to be able to get their music from iTunes... because funnily enough I don't want to buy a Beatles album because I only like a certain selection of their songs!

If they ever released the music digitally I'll buy it... end of. Simple fact of the matter is as far as they are concerned, it's a done deal and they've buried it in a deep dark vault forever.

Remember here in the UK the only way some shows including old episodes od Doctor Who, were saved... was through peoplke having kept private copies because the [idiots]old executives at the BBC[/idiots] thought it was a fundamentally good idea to wipe old material.

There was a really obscure programme here called "Blood and Honey" I went to extraordinary lengths to get it by legal means on VHS and am proud to say I succeeded (something I told the narrator, Tony Robinson when I met him).

It's only now that executives are starting to understand our desire for retro cult kids shows. Mysterious Cities of Gold and Star Fleet were only introduced into the DVD market in the past 18 months... many years after they were first broadcast (never brought out on VHS) and in the case of these shows it was assumed that the full official versions had been lost and the only copies in existence were bootlegs made from smart kids who had video recorders back when they were on telly. I will buy them both.

Who makes the decisions here? Who sits round a table and says this will get published and this won't?

Just answer me in real terms how hard it is to make everything physically available (that an artist is willing to have released) in an archive... and letting the people decide what they want to buy?

Books surely must have the worst excuse. Something may very well be out of print... but if the document is stored electronically you don't have to worry about how many to print... if someone wants it bad enough they can pay for the book as a download.

In the modern era there is simply no real excuse for a book to ever be unavailable.

 

[Jan]

Just answer me in real terms how hard it is to make everything physically available (that an artist is willing to have released) in an archive... and letting the people decide what they want to buy?

I don't have any way of knowing but I do know that it's far more complex an issue than simply 'we have the technology, let's do it'. I realize that you're mostly talking about music but even those rights can be complex between composer, artist, musicians and distributor.

I hear that one reason why some old shows have never been released on VHS or DVD is due to music that was played on the shows. Apparently the producers only licensed rights to the music for the broadcast and it's prohibitively expensive to license it for the video distribution.

As the recent writer's strike illustrated, technology has far outstripped the contracts and agreements that were standard only a few years ago. Until an equitable system can be worked out, many things will simply remain unavailable.

Jan

 

[Galahad]

I hear that one reason why some old shows have never been released on VHS or DVD is due to music that was played on the shows. Apparently the producers only licensed rights to the music for the broadcast and it's prohibitively expensive to license it for the video distribution.

I first became aware of that particular issue in the VHS era with Quantum Leap (the very concept of the show relied on era specific music being played in practiocally every episode). However, I had figured that they had found a way round this problem... as they have released every series on DVD now.

As the recent writer's strike illustrated, technology has far outstripped the contracts and agreements that were standard only a few years ago. Until an equitable system can be worked out, many things will simply remain unavailable.

Jan

I get the impression that the cards are in the hands of a few powerful people (major corporation execs and lawyers), who are unwilling to reduce their profit margin to accommodate the people who work to provide them with it.

There's more than one way to kill a goose that lays golden eggs, depriving it of it's feed is just as effective... it just takes a little longer than a knife.

 

[KoshFan]

Who makes the decisions here? Who sits round a table and says this will get published and this won't?

"Who decides that the workday is from 9 to 5, instead of 11 to 4? Who decides that the hemlines will be below the knee this year and short again next year? Who draws up the borders, controls the currency, handles all of the decisions that happen transparently around us?"
"I don't know."
"Ah! I'm with them. Same group, different department."

And I don't like them any more in this universe than I did in B5.

I hear that one reason why some old shows have never been released on VHS or DVD is due to music that was played on the shows. Apparently the producers only licensed rights to the music for the broadcast and it's prohibitively expensive to license it for the video distribution.

This is another problem I have with the whole thing: any lawyer, anywhere, can spike the whole process... no matter what the fans and even the creators want. Joss Whedon wrote a musical episode of Buffy, which was wildly popular, and a group of fans started holding sing-along gatherings to show it. The cost of admission just covered the costs to the organizers, no profit was involved. They were also careful to get permission from Fox, and Whedon himself was all in favor (he even turned up to one of the showings). But then another division of Fox heard about it and pulled the plug. The people involved had done their level best to be legal, and still were shut down because of the law.

There's a line in Howard Pyle's "Adventures of Robin Hood," I believe, about how the law had grown so complex that "a man did not even know when he had broken it." On this and other things, I believe we're there again. And when the law is not knowable, it becomes tyranny...

As the recent writer's strike illustrated, technology has far outstripped the contracts and agreements that were standard only a few years ago. Until an equitable system can be worked out, many things will simply remain unavailable.

Jan

Yeah, but the people in charge don't want an equitable system. Equitable systems aren't as profitable. And profit is placed above all things.

 

[Jan]

I first became aware of that particular issue in the VHS era with Quantum Leap (the very concept of the show relied on era specific music being played in practiocally every episode). However, I had figured that they had found a way round this problem... as they have released every series on DVD now.

I've heard that some shows replaced the original music and some are still hanging. Isn't WKRP in Cincinnatti one of those?

I get the impression that the cards are in the hands of a few powerful people (major corporation execs and lawyers), who are unwilling to reduce their profit margin to accommodate the people who work to provide them with it.

What they're claiming is that 'new media' isn't profitable yet so they don't want to let the contracts be ammended. Thing is, they played the same card back when VHS was new and the opportunity was lost and the content creators were SOL for years. This time they're trying to prevent the same thing from happening because it's pretty inevitable that the new forms of distribution will certainly either become very profitable or they'll fall by the wayside.

Jan

 

[Ranger1]

we can get into the publishers view of the trade as "theft" if you want

I've never seen any publisher or distributer ever postulate that the second-hand market is infringement. So why bring it up?

Jan[/QUOTE]

i believe it came up last year or the year before in the US, i think it was gamestop (something like that) that was sued, the case was thrown out, but the publishers maintain their argument.

 

[Jan]

we can get into the publishers view of the trade as "theft" if you want

I've never seen any publisher or distributer ever postulate that the second-hand market is infringement. So why bring it up?

Jan

i believe it came up last year or the year before in the US, i think it was gamestop (something like that) that was sued, the case was thrown out, but the publishers maintain their argument.

Dunno, I'm not into gaming on any level but my possibly-erronious assumption would be that any provisions for resale or even giving the software disk(s) away might be covered in the license agreement that everybody has to at least pretend to agree to? With regular I believe that that requires all copies being removed from the hard drives before a copy can be passed along to anybody else? Naturally that's up to the individual who originally purchased it so trying to hold a vendor responsible would most likely just be a frivolous suit pursued by a greedy lawyer.

Jan

 

[KoshFan]

My last word on the subject:

 

[Mercury]

By god KoshN you weren't kidding when you said some of the books are hard to find....I can't seem to find the 3rd book of the Centauri trilogy for less than 70$(!!!). I'll keep searching cause Amazon allows you to read a random page and I want them books!

Basically I've decided I want the Centauri trilogy and Technomage trilogy, but I can see that won't be easy.

 

[Jan]

Basically I've decided I want the Centauri trilogy and Technomage trilogy, but I can see that won't be easy.

Your best bet will probably be Ebay. Every once in a while you can run across a badly titled or badly written ad and get them at a decent price. Not a *good* price, mind you, because they're so rare, but decent.

Good luck.

Jan

 

[B5_Obsessed]

I donated all of mine to the Seminole County Public Library System.

 

[Mercury]

I donated all of mine to the Seminole County Public Library System.

Donate them to me! I am the needy in this particular case

 

[KoshN]

By god KoshN you weren't kidding when you said some of the books are hard to find....I can't seem to find the 3rd book of the Centauri trilogy for less than 70$(!!!). I'll keep searching cause Amazon allows you to read a random page and I want them books!

Have you found Book #2 "Summoning Light" of the Technomage trilogy?

Basically I've decided I want the Centauri trilogy and Technomage trilogy, but I can see that won't be easy.

Don't skip the Psi Corps trilogy. It's also a good, and follows the bloodlines of Al Bester and Lyta Alexander, from the discovery of telepaths to Bester's death, and Vorlon influences. It's best to take notes while reading these books, and make family trees for both Bester's line and Lyta Alexander's line.

And for god's sake, don't skip #7 "The Shadow Within" !!! It's the prequel to the Technomage trilogy. Read that one right before starting into the Technomage trilogy.

#9 "To Dream in the City of Sorrows" deals with Sinclair and Valen, and is another must read.


#7, #9, the three trilogies and the six short stories are the ones to read.

 

[KoshN]

Basically I've decided I want the Centauri trilogy and Technomage trilogy, but I can see that won't be easy.

Your best bet will probably be Ebay. Every once in a while you can run across a badly titled or badly written ad and get them at a decent price. Not a *good* price, mind you, because they're so rare, but decent.

Good luck.

Jan

I don't know where Mercury is from, but if in the USA, a good place to check would be "Half Price Books & Music."
http://www.halfpricebooks.com/

I donated all of mine to the Seminole County Public Library System.

I donated a new set of #7, #9, the three trilogies and the novelizations to my local public library, but later (years later) went back and convinced them to let me have the Centauri trilogy back, help out a fellow B5er who couldn't find Centauri trilogy Book #3.

Mercury, see:

http://search.half.ebay.com/
Search by ISBN for 0-345-42720-3

Search by ISBN for 0-345-42722-X