Quote:
Originally Posted by DiapDealer
Hmmm. Did I miss the part of the discussion where that was all "established?" Or has the definition of the word been changed? There's been some opinions bandied back and forth, but none of the stuff you mentioned in that quote has been "established," that I can see. So as far as I'm concerned... the "bush" still needs some beating before I'm ready to concede that copyright has absolutely no redeeming qualities--as you seem so eager to "establish."
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I'm sorry, I'll rephrase that to: I've presented some historical facts, that's yet to be disproven. Mostly the data regarding the comparison of two different countries enjoying a similar volume and pricing before Copyright was established, aswell as a comparison after Copyright was introduced to one country but not the others. The result being that the british authors earnings went down and that the amount of original works produced pr. country pr. year experienced and incredible disparity. This of course not considering the various socioeconomic implications of the average wealth of a british citizen being significantly higher than a german citizen, aswell as Germany having a slightly higher population count, or the fact that the statistic data was compiled of a period of over 100 years before, during and after (after being when copyright was introduced in Germany aswell)
Despite that, I feel, being only my individual opinion, that this comparison being based on what we may consider somewhat accurate historical facts, presents a somewhat stronger statement than either presenting an individuals salary or just saying "no author made a living before copyright", since both those are based on opinions disproven by the current historical data. This argument is futher strengthed by the somewhat singificant circumstance that there in academic circles seems currently no disagreement with those historical data.
By that I mean that I, I being an individual, has established, so far, that the historical claims presented so far has been inaccurate, and until disproven that Copyright, in that representative historical context, has had harmful implications for both authors and consumers. I, not being an authority on this subject, naturally not being able to establish this futher than you hopefully accepting the evidence given as credible and willing to debate it.
I really shouldn't write past midnight, I get somewhat pedantic
My point is, that I can't really make you concede that Copyright has no redeeming qualities, since I am not convinced of that fact myself. I think your mistaken my opposition to some of the, to my mind, inaccurate historical claims defending Copyright and high prices, with not believing in any protection for creators of content.
I just feel that Copyright, from a historical perspective, has been harmful to creativity and accessability, and as such we as consumers need to attempt to affect changes towards improving it. Noone else is going to do it for us. That being in small ways by avoiding DRM'd books, or being vocal about high priced books being bollocks.