Re: intellectual property

[Shadowgold]

>>But even under fair use, the standard of royalty reduction is not >>consistently applied. Without even copying a recording, sharing potentially >>reduces royalties from sales.  Suppose I lend my own purchased copy of >>a DVD >>to Eric Crampton and he watches the movie and returns it to me.  If I had >>not lent it to him, suppose that he would have rented it or purchased it >>himself.  My act of lending it to him reduced royalties. The lending is >>legal under fair use (isn't it?), even though royalties are reduced. >Ken C (a fellow GMU PhD student) did bring over the director's cut of FotR >and I watched it. Had he not done so I would most definitely not, in my current >state of poverty, have gone out and purchased or even rented it.  so his >willingess to share increased my surplus without decreasing the surplus of the >owner of the "intellectual property right" to it.   Heck, let's go a step farther.  I'm an anime fan, and first watched an obscure anime series on my computer, after receiving the video file from a friend who downloaded it from a file-sharing network.  Not having seen it before, and not expecting it to be very well-done, I certainly would not have purchased the series on DVD left to myself.  However, having finished the series, and having enjoyed it very much, I actually bought the DVDs.  I don't think that this sort of behavior is that uncommon; people can and do download music from P2P networks in order to see if a new album is worth buying.  Here's a case where file-sharing increases royalties.  My surplus and the intellectual property owner's surplus both go up.  Even if I had not ended up buying the DVDs, however, I would still feel that the owner's intellectual property right was not violated; I bring up this line of argument as a possible counterbalance to the line of reasoning that has people downloading music in lieu of purchasing it.   --Brian [EMAIL PROTECTED]