Good debate :-)
On 13/06/07, David Greaves <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>> So where is the balance?
>
> I believe you're referring to the commonly-held misconception that
> there is a "copyright balance."
No, not copyright balance. Economic balance.
Apologies for misunderstanding you there :-)
>> Or do you believe that the content creator (and as
>> Michael pointed out, colleagues) doesn't deserve recompense?
>
> "Deserve", no.
>
> Authors do not inherently deserve the right to control the publics use
> of their work;
I didn't ask that - I asked if they deserve recompense.
Sure - nothing wrong with exchanging value for cash. Even if the
majority of the value is generated by someone else, if you can find a
way to add value and push out a profit margin, that's great. (As long
as you don't stop everyone else from adding value to what you did and
profiting further)
And I think people like to reward things they find value in.
Stallman made a recent speech about this (the first half is an
introduction to free software, the second half is about free culture,
at
http://www.fsfe.org/en/fellows/hesa/richard_m_stallman_s_speech_in_gothenburg_2007_05_16
:-) and mentioned an estimate that the average American spends $20 on
music per year, and 10% of money spent on music actually gets through
the publishers to the artists. If it was possible to send money
directly to artists, I think people would send more than $2 a year.
> those rights are given to them by the public, and were
> intended to be given only in so far as that they benefitted the
> public.
No, quote: "Rather, it does this to modify their behavior: to provide an
incentive for authors to write more and publish more."
...so that the public benefits.
Society (and therefore I) has a moral obligation to uphold its end of the
bargain - ie limit unpaid sharing.
I value sharing. I believe sharing is the basis of being be a good
friend and a good neighbor. I believe that limiting sharing is a
nasty, shameful thing to do. I don't believe that artists and authors
will be unable to make a living in a world where unlimited sharing is
encouraged.
> Corporate corruption of governments has weakened democracy
> very badly, and the way copyright is used against the public interest
> is an example of this wider problem with global society.
Agree 100%. eg Disney are, wrt copyright, completely hypocritical bastards.
I am similarly sickened by the situation in schools where "rights holders" are
coming down on music clubs and essentially preventing musical performances.
For sure :-) Musical performances are an essential part of all human
cultures, binding communities together from the dawn of history. Isn't
sharing music data through the Internet is the translation into new
media of that primitive impulse? :-)
> Authors need to find new business models that do not harm the public;
> they do exist, and there is a lot of money to be made in pursuing
> them.
But they need society as a whole to agree to an approach.
And for the past 40 years (or so) the predominantly physical transport of media
has lead to a status-quo. Whilst it's appealing to rip it out roots and all -
it's not pragmatic.
But it is happening. Here, the more influential members of society are
the younger ones. Tom mentioned that 20% of the BBCs audience will
never go online, and that maybe only 5% actually appreciate what we're
debating. But that 20% is only going down, ("popping their clogs" Tom
said, lol!) and the 5% is going up, fast.
So we have copyright - a legal tool used by the GPL. It's not going away.
DRM, or rather LESS - is the issue.
LESS is not enough :-)
> I'm glad to hear we agree on all of these things.
We're closer than I think you think :)
:-)
>> You're right, try:
>> >> For *THE VAST MAJORITY OF MORALLY SOUND PEOPLE*, which is more
>> likely to
>> >> work?
>
> Morally sound people share with their friends.
Morally sound people would accept their societal obligations and contribute to
the artist to a societally accepted degree (yes, driven by capitalism) and then
obtain the media, possibly electronically from a friend.
Morally sound people are today obtaining media digitally from their
friends and everyone on the (filesharing) network, and contribute to
the artist to a societally accepted degree when the opportunity to do
so is apparent.
A good example of how people _do_ volunteer to pay is
http://www.sheeba.ca/store/
Though they don't respect our sharing, they have an interested
you-decide-the-price model, and ranges from "pay nothing!" upwards,
with recommended price points. It then runs all transactions through
an averaging system, and this is apparently often higher than the
prices paid at the iTMS.
>> > Neither. Talk to teenagers - file sharing is here to stay.
>>
>> If your argument is that we raise morally bankrupt children then so be
>> it.
>> Teenagers however, are not the vast majority of people.
>
> No, but with the baby boom generation about to retire, en masse, young
> people are assuming positions of power previously unavailable. These
> young people have grown up with computers (although not the Internet)
> and understand that file sharing is a good thing to do.
This has little to do with file sharing and more to do with economics and
license enforcement.
The point is influence, not demographics. And licenses encode culture,
they don't define it; a culture that depends on user-restricting
licensing is doomed, because the lesser of two evils between breaking
an an agreement and not sharing is breaking the agreement.
--
Regards,
Dave
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