Week 5 - Copyright

 A mess

    The Pirate Party provides some very interesting viewpoints on existing laws, a few of which caught my particular interest.

File Sharing - Inherent Surveillance

    A point that is way too often neglected was brought up here. To ban sharing copies of digital content would be to monitor the sending of said digital content. While a lot of places already do try to do this, they are limited in their capabilities and are not officially supported by the law in doing so. I fear for what may happen to our freedoms should official restrictions be placed on sharing things between individuals - as mentioned, it was completely okay in the past, yet is suddenly becoming a major issue. 

B-but how will artists make money?

    One of the main points brought up by copyright lobbyists with complete dishonesty. Big labels have zero regard for the artists under them - in fact they will do anything they can to leech off of them as much as possible. If one were to actually ask for the opinions of artists on publishers/labels, none of them would actually be positive. If at all possible, especially for smaller artists, they would prefer to avoid most bigger labels entirely. This backlash, to me initially, became evident ever since one of the musicians I follow creating a politically motivated song that had the intent to stop Article 13. [1] <--- A highly recommended watch by one of my favorite rappers that also received the support of many very, very popular content creators (It is remixed by grandayy, a popular memer - and it also has short clips with PewDiePie, Jacksepticeye, and Roomie). 
    The entire Article 13 fiasco sparked a heavy anti-copyright movement amongst artists and content creators, yet politicians are somehow still relatively blind to it. "How can we trust a robot that only sees the content, but context's invisible" - While this quote in its source is meant about the AI that usually implements copyright on the Internet, it actually applies very well to the politicians that vote for these laws. They do not see the actual people this affects. They only see the money, just like our mentioned Econodwarf. 

DRM

    DRM is an increasingly invasive measure to enforce copyright, used mostly by bigger companies to be able to be greedier. However, the sheer 'insolence' of these methods has not gone unnoticed. I am only qualified to talk about what I have most experience with - DRM in games. It is something that has become very prevalent with bigger studios, and it really seems to change how digital distribution works. No longer can you be sure that when you buy digital content that you own it. I am not sure how this kind of thing is even fully legal, but it is so widespread that it must be.. right? A tactic often used is "always-online DRM", requiring people to always be connected with a logged in account when trying to play a game that they purchased, but what happens when the servers stop being supported. As time goes on, we are seeing games completely die when their creators move on, simply because they require a connection to the main servers to be played, yet the main servers do not exist anymore - ending up with people who bought a product, yet have it completely taken away from them.
    It has come to a point where games with DRM get review bombed and instantly plummet in ratings. Some big companies try to avoid it by implementing DRM a few weeks after the release, through the use of a mandatory update that brings it, though that is a disgusting tactic that brings even worse backlash. Distributions and developers are even using the lack of DRM as a selling point, and it works. An example that I remember vividly is a youtuber making a review on a game called "Star Sector", and providing a full copy/license to the game in his video for anyone to use. This actually resulted in very positive figures for the game, as people got to test the game out for themselves and if they liked it, they decided to support the developer - even though they technically already had the product. People were also happy about the developer's positive outlook on their game being shared freely, resulting in even better figures for them - as if one were to check the video's description, the developers even gave the content creator direct download links to share with his audience. People are getting sick of copyright, and the mob against it grows bigger and louder with every single annoying tactic that corporations use to enforce copyright. It is a nuisance that, in the case of many digital products, only reduces its value.  [2] <- CD part timestamped, though I recommend the entire video - albeit it is a longer one. The game itself is set in a universe that has a lot of its aspects defined by very heavy copyright laws, which is mentioned in the video. :) [Also take note of the EXTREMELY long credits of the Patreon supporters - it is a very great example of people willing to pay for free content that they enjoy, Sseth earning 11,000 USD per video he creates]


[2] https://youtu.be/acqpulP1hLo?t=1033 - Accessed 02/03/21

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