[Jaime_Astorga]

*dons a fire-proof suit* Wow, things are getting ugly around here.

Originally Posted by HansTWN

Stop chasing windmills (and rant about permanent copyrights, nobody here is arguing in favor of that), why should a writer work for free when you don't?

Even if it became completely impossible to make a living from writing, writers would not have to work for free. They would still perfectly entitled to not write. It would just mean that, due to the market, their preferred profession is no longer lucrative. I read once that having one's profession become unprofitable is an unavoidable risk of being alive, and I agree with that.

However, even rampant piracy by every single person in the country would not make authors unable to earn income; I list several ways authors can earn money from their work later in my post.

Originally Posted by HansTWN

The way to advance society is not by ensuring that you get a free lunch.

Once could also argue that the way the to advance society is not by restricting access and use of information and in doing so severely hamper people's ability to improve on existing work.

Originally Posted by PKFFW

Maybe I am assigning those things.

It's just to me, the argument of "creators will always create", especially when coupled with the argument "the author needs to find ways to add value to their book" seems to indicate that the person making those arguments does not place any inherent value on the creation of the book itself.

I don't understand what is meant by "value" here. I mean, I get that it takes time, effort, and talent to produce a good book. What I don't get is why that means I don't get to make a copy and read it without paying the author, when the infrastructure allows me to do it with a few clicks.

Originally Posted by PKFFW

Others have suggested authors have no right to make a living from their creative endeavours. That writing is a priviledge and they should be happy to be creative in their spare time around their "real job".

While I would agree that authors have no right to make a living from their works, that is because I think nobody has the right to make a living doing anything (I DO think people have a right to life, though, but I digress). Authors certainly have the right to try to make a living from their works as they see fit; however, that right ends when they need to use laws restraining other people's actions in order for their business models to work. If they can't make a living without those restrictions, that's just a market reality; nobody can make a living selling buggy whips anymore, either, no matter how much they love making them.

However, the philosophical justification aside, it should be made clear that there are ways for authors to earn money (advertisements, selling signed books, commissioned works, donations, speaking tours, etc...) without restricting other people's ability to read and copy their works. Are they likely to be at least as lucrative as royalties and advances? Probably not. Will a bigger percentage of authors be unable to depend solely on their works for income and need to take a second job which their writing merely supplements, if it isn't abandoned altogether? Perhaps. Still, a lot of other people have activities they enjoy but which they can nevertheless not depend on for part of, much less the entirety of, their income.

Originally Posted by HansTWN

Here is another idea that might come to Europe at some time in the near future (since they already have to pay a surcharge on all storage media that is then distributed to the media companies -- you have to pay even when you just buy a DVD to store business/personal files!). A huge surcharge on all internet connections. And then everybody will be legally free to just download whatever they want. And society pays. Someone always does. At the moment it is those of us who pay for content.

Yes, that might be possible. I hope it doesn't happen, however. My biggest problems with the idea being practical concerns about gaming the distribution system and the burden on the poor such a charge might cause (considering that an internet connection is essential to functioning in today's society).

Originally Posted by HansTWN

Copyright is there to protect the individual, not the public. The creator and or/his assigned agent have the right to copy. They give up certain rights (parody, personal backup, etc) in return for protection. It is a sort of property right for ideas.

Growing the public domain is something that happens after the copyright expires --- the length of which, as I have repeatedly mentioned, is the subject of a completely different discussion. First those rights have to be protected, then we can argue how long would be reasonable.

I disagree. I don't think people should have an inherent right to control the information they create. The rightful place of every work is in the public domain, available for everyone to not only read, but derive from and improve upon. Copyright should, under the best of circumstances, be a practical measure enacted to further the public domain by providing an incentive for people to create by granting them time-limited monopolies which can be exploited for profit, with the people and businesses temporarily giving up their inherent right to access and use said information in exchange for promoting information creation. However, even ignoring the issue of infinite extensions, I am rather skeptical of the value of non-commercial copyright to the modern world.

...

Now, as to the OP... Limewire? Haha, I remember that. These days pirates have mostly moved onto torrents, though. I guess by the time the courts get around to legislating THAT, something else will have cropped up.

You know, I bitch and moan a lot about how the law is slow to adapt to new technology, but this is one of the times when I am glad for that fact of life.