On 07/01/2010 03:12 AM, Paul Davis wrote:
On Wed, Jun 30, 2010 at 12:57 PM, Rob<lau@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
But geez, look around you. If
you can't see that young people don't see digital representations of things
as having the same value as physical objects, and that some of those young
people are going to be lawmakers in another couple decades, you're in
denial. When works were tied to physical objects -- CDs, vinyl, magnetic
tape -- it was easy to perceive the value of the whole package. But
typing:
cp davephillips-springof23.ogg /mnt/mp3-player/songs
doesn't instantly create value the way building a second copy of a car
would, no matter how badly copyright proponents would like to pretend it
does.
this is a strawman. "copyright proponents" (and i'm not referring to
sony, disney and sony bono, but dave phillips and myself) aren't
claiming that copying the expression of an idea creates value and that
people should not be allowed to "steal that value". the people who
claim that are idiots :)
the claim here is that the development of an idea before it is
expressed is a form of work. if the work is to be rewarded, its either
going to be done before, at or after the point at which an expression
of the idea is released into the world. because copying the expression
is so easy, its not easy to see how one can ensure sufficient revenue
from the release to make it feasible for the artist to *work* as an
artist.
i'm fine (to some extent) with the conclusion that we, as a society,
no longer wish to pay artists& creatives to do what they do. but if
that's really going to be the conclusion, we'd better think very
carefully about all the side effects. i'm not sure its pretty, and it
may be even less pretty than the world in which disney and sonny bono
get everything they ask for.
Here's my contepoint rant to DP's assertions.
I think the comparison is to being told to move out of the trenches to
face the inevitable barrage of incoming bullets. One has to ask what
decision allowed the decision maker to end up at the point in the first
place. Simply going with the agreed laws and allowing them to take
precedence over self preservation is what lead to the situation.
It is simple for this concept to be transferred to copyright law. If you
have the ability to take something for free without having to give any
thought to the consequences that the originating party will observe to
their profit line then the majority of people and every single company
in the world will do so. Going against that is going up against the free
market.
People can complain and attempt to apply laws to restrict this but the
free market will always find a way to circumvent such restrictions. The
only way to guarantee any income is to get it in advance before the item
being sold has left your control. Attempting to retain control of a
product once it is released to the open market is a noble cause but
inevitably doomed to failure.
Likewise if people don't pay me for my work I can either stop working
for them or make their life difficult until I get some form of payment.
Copyright law is one step in the making things difficult for people
solution. However the question still comes round to what decisions were
made to allow a situation to get to a point where a freedom restricting
law is required to be used to attain an income.
Is it a better solution than pulling in a favor from Uncle Medici or my
cousin from the Blue Dragon Clan? One may have a quicker turn around by
working around the law. This is hardly uncivilised behaviour. In fact I
would suggest it is the epitome of civilised behaviour. Using law as the
tool for recourse to payment is just a way for legal minded people to
exert the control that they have in their grasp. It's an opton but is it
a reasonable option?
However if you have an agreement to be paid and you don't get paid that
is bound to make you get a little bit upset. Do you choose to take that
out on other people or do you attempt to make the best use of your time
to minimise that possibility?
95% of us are struggling to make a living and pay our bills. The system
is designed to perpetuate that balance of power. A small amount of us
want to control the use of our artistic crations and written works in
the public domain. Do those people have power to stop the vast majority
from copying their works? They can try but they will never succeed. The
ones that are able to get some kind of income from their attempts at
control are actually enabling the larger monster of corporation and
government to assert more control over the rest of us and further
perpetuate the imbalance that the ruling elite rely on to maintain their
power in society.
--
Patrick Shirkey
Boost Hardware Ltd
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