Quote:
Originally Posted by mr ploppy
People like that will be very much a minority, and if you get the price and convenience factors right they won't even bother looking for a free copy. Most unauthorised downloading is done on impulse — you see it, you download it. Most are never even read after download.
|
To quote a certain police captain: "Just because you say it with conviction, doesn't make it so!" You don't know how many people pirate files, buy files, pirate only because they couldn't find a legit file, or buy legit because they couldn't find a pirate file. And "most are never read" is NOT the same as "none are ever read." You can't make an absolute statement out of suppositions and estimates.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward
Even that can't be the full standard. Example - book reviews. Quoting a sentence or two as a descriptive example would be a clear example of fair use (in the US), and most reviews are done for profit. That doesn't meet your description.
|
But a review of a book isn't recounting the entire book, it is its own original product; so it's not bound by the laws governing redistributing the entire book.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward
Steve, this get to the nub of the matter. Much of the foundation of this discussion is based on bad metaphors to start with. Copyright is not property (in the classic sense), and using and thinking of it as property leads to a completely false base for thinking and considering. Making more metaphors based on a false metaphor to start with just leads to confusion and propaganda. (And that is the purpose of metaphors in this context - propaganda)...
|
Yes, we agree on this (alert the media). Copyright was formed using existing "property" metaphors in the first place... and that was probably a mistake--a
minor mistake, which did little harm at the outset, but which has gotten to be larger and more troublesome over time thanks to corporate manipulation. Now, we are trying to apply a metaphor-mistaken statute to electronic files, a wholly new entity that was unheard-of when the original copyright laws were formed.
So, we know we need new metaphors that work for electronic files in general, and entertainment media like ebooks and music in particular. The next question is, are there good sources of existing metaphors for electronic media (such as cable TV, broadcast, service industry, utilities, etc), or do we need a completely new set of metaphors for electronic media? And if so, where do we get those?