Quote:
Originally Posted by Kali Yuga
• The technical ability to distribute digital content at low cost, or the human tendency to "share," does not, in and of itself, confer the legal or moral right to infringe copyright.
|
No, but laws should take human nature and the habits of thousands of years of history into account--a law that declared "Food-sharing can lead to disease, therefore anyone who eats off the same plate as another person is guilty of a misdemeanor, and will be fined from $100 to $1000 and jailed for no more than 30 days" will be soundly ignored and mocked.
There is no innate, moral right to copy protections on one's creative efforts. Our species survived without such protections for tens of thousands of years (millions, according to some); there's no human "need" for copyrights, except to allow our current cultures to flourish. Laws to encourage creativity and protect financial interests need to work
with, not against, human nature, or they are doomed to failure.
Quote:
• Musicians willingly and knowingly enter into contracts with record companies. If an artist doesn't hire a lawyer to thoroughly review the contract and/or gets a raw deal, it is their own fault (unless there is actual criminal misconduct involved). It is also far easier today to self-publish and self-distribute your own works to a global audience, at almost no cost, than at any time in history.
|
I'm not a fan of "if they didn't consult a legal expert, or the right legal expert, before signing, screw them." However, Stallman does seem to believe that ALL recording contracts are so abusive as to be worthless to the artists, and I don't agree with that.
Quote:
• The purpose of copyright is not just to encourage artists, it is also to protect the integrity of the artists' / distributor's / publisher's work and commercial interests.
|
Not in the U.S. Protecting integrity & commercial interests temporarily is the means to getting new creative content available to everyone. However, I do agree that Stallman's proposed fixes aren't realistic. They're useful as starting concepts--if we tried to fund artists as a sort of national resource, how could we go about it? Certainly worth considering. But not worth implementing as he's imagined it; Stallman is no great judge of human nature, himself.
Quote:
• Stallman does not appear to recognize that an alternative to what he calls the "War on Sharing" is to offer better options than the infringing methods.
|
I like Stallman's rants; they give me much to think about. I generally agree with his goals but think he has flawed concepts of how to reach them.