Quote:
Originally Posted by NatCh
If I'm (finally) understanding what you're getting at, you're saying that copyright laws (mostly) worked when copying required a lot of infrastructure to do on any sort of scale, because only a few fairly large players could do it in enough quantity to make an impact, and those few were relatively easily tracked down if they got out of line.
But now, copying is so simple, cheap and easy, and distribution the same plus largely anonymous, which makes enforcement next to impossible because there are a multitude of small, more or less invisible "operations" which can have a great impact, individually and collectively.
So it's not so much that the copyright laws have stopped working as it is that the paradigm has shifted in such a way that what was enforcible, no longer is enforcible.
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Ah... okay, I've got it, too, and I agree, it's a good point. (I confess, I really thought you were just arguing for giving it all away!
)
Anyway, when described like that, it makes the situation sound even more dire. Your observations suggest that: The laws need to be rewritten; DRM needs to be better (I know, I
know); and ultimately, it won't matter one way or the other unless an entirely new compensation model is applied. Actually, I think that if 1 and 2 are applied, 3 may not be necessary... but you might say the same about almost any combination of the 3. Besides, making substantive changes to any of the above will be a huge undertaking.
So where are we left? Are we all doomed to never make a dime on digital files? Should we all pack it in and start flipping burgers?