Quote:
Originally Posted by disconnected
But why the need for balance at all if a public domain of works wasn’t the ultimate objective? Why not perpetual copyright?
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Invert the question: if the ultimate objective was to put works in the PD, why a period of copyright AT ALL?
I'll ask it again: folks, if the real objective was to create works for the PD, rather than for commercial enjoyment by the populace, why pay the artists a royalty fee/ownership fee, etc., at ALL? Why not establish an Amazon-like pool, from which all artists are paid flat fees (like word-rate piecework) and move the titles directly to the PD?
For those of you who think that DRM is evil, and that the objective was SOLELY to serve the public with art--and not to ensure that authors, et al, were paid--please answer THAT. Explicate the WHY. The Roman emperors certainly commissioned Public Art; Public Art for marketplaces, etc., is still commissioned today. It's not as though the establishers thereof wouldn't have known of it.
Even as far back as the Cathach, ("to each cow its calf," or words to that effect), the OWNERSHIP of the creation was the driving principle--not the "good of the people." Doesn't the Talmud talk of this?
So...I'd like to hear the factual arguments for the other side. If the good of the reader is the
driving force behind copyright, other than, "after 30-50-75 whatever years, it falls into the PD," what is that thinking?
Arguably, if the "good of the people" is the driving force, then the discussions we're having here can be equally attributed to all types of public works. That would include anything...Parks, Highway Department, Sanitation...all of those things are needed for the public good, right? And everybody who works in those areas get paid, right, and get to keep their money? For their labors? We don't consider the "good of the people" as some overweening right to compel you to give up your labors, do we?
Honestly, it's quite peculiar to me that authors, et al, exist in some rights ghetto. Like a substandard, second-class group of people, who--just because others want to be ENTERTAINED by their work--have to give up the proceeds that they can make from their books, etc., because somebody, somewhere in time, said it was for "the public good."
So are clean toilets at rest stops--but I don't expect the workers who keep them that way to work for free, or have some substandard set of rights that say that they have to sacrifice some portion of their earnings. Or to deliberately hang the proceeds of their cashed checks outside of their pockets on the way home from the bank, and
HOPE that somebody doesn't rob them...which is the equivalent of saying that you'll "force" an author/publisher to put his books out there and
hope that nobody takes them without paying.
I wonder how many of you would be willing to engage in that experiment: put your paycheck in your pocket, half-hanging out. Walk all the way home.
See if you can depend on the "kindness of strangers" not to dip their hands into your pockets, or to pick your money up if it falls out, and hand it back to you.
Because essentially, if you think all DRM should be eliminated, that's what you want to force publishers to do;
rely 100%, completely, on "the kindness of strangers," to be HONEST PEOPLE. OR, for the publishers to simply say, "oh, hell, we're going to get ripped-off 30% of the time, anyway, so we'll just jack up our prices that 30% to compensate." The latter is the "pirates won't buy your book anyway" argument consequence; the former is simply naivete.
I've dealt with the public. And Strangers. You know what?
They're just not that damned HONEST. So go ahead; try to force publishers to do away with DRM. You'll end up hurting yourselves, if you ARE honest, because you'll end up paying for the theft ratios. You think books are high-priced now? Oish.
Everybody wants to have it all ways--cheap ebooks, way cheaper than pbooks ("just because," because OBVIOUSLY, reading a book in pixels is just not as FUN as reading it on paper....), PLUS no DRM, PLUS copyright periods should be shortened ("because it's just not FAIR!!!"), etc. There's no Book-Santa, kids...publishing is a business, and if you'd simply look at it in that light, and understand that is what it's FOR, this would be a simpler and less absurdly convoluted conversation.
Hitch