Copyright is Out of Sight

[James_Wilde]

@Enlil S Enki - good post.

Another thing that most of us are forgetting, because we are children of our times, is that, like so many other things which we think are eternal because we have known them all our lives, like telephones, CDs, computers, people living from writing books is a relatively new phenomenon, and is a lot younger than the invention of the printing press which made it possible. I would go so far as to say that it is largely a 20th century phenomenon.

And even today there are far more people who write even though they don't get paid for it than there are those who do it for a living. Almost every indie publisher is such a person. I am one myself. Sure, we might have a dream that our latest product will catch on, sell a jillion copies, get filmed for another jillion and we'll achieve economic independence, like a Britney Spears movie, but most people write because they enjoy it and want to share a story or a point of view.

Copyright is primarily defended to protect a publisher's income, not a writer's, although if you ask any writer who has managed to make it big, they may well have a different point of view.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by elcreative

and I have looked at what the OP said and that gets

I don't see why. Even if the only people who turn to piracy are the people who are currently buying second hand paperbacks it would still make sense to look at ways of monetising those downloads. And if you doubt that anyone would write just because of a desire to create, you only need to look at all the free fiction on Smashwords or on blogs, or the fanfic sites. None of that stuff will ever make its creators any money, so by your logic it was obviously never written.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by carld

I vote for convincing people that they don't have some magically invented right to steal his work.

Good luck with that one. Just out of interest, how are you planning to go about it?

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by Namekuseijin

I think knowledge ought to be free, even when the result of years of intense funded research.

That's not the case for art, though. No one funds art, art is not useful to anyone: "All art is quite useless", as Oscar Wilde promptly noticed. Artists make a living from selling their dreams. Why is it ok for a baker to sell something you can do youself in your cheap hitech kitchen but it is not ok for an artist to sell something you can cheaply copy in your hitech home?

Why is it ok to pay to feed the body but it is not ok to pay to feed the soul?

In the UK in the 1970s you could apply for a grant to be an artist. It didn't pay much, but it was enough for basic living costs. It covered all forms of art, including performance art (happenings and the like), but excluded "commercial" art (like writing books or graphic design). The Arts Council still exists, but now all the money goes to people and organisations that don't really need it.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

Good luck with that one. Just out of interest, how are you planning to go about it?

We're working on it right here.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by kennyc

We're working on it right here.

And having the usual success: Talking 'round and 'round and not getting anywhere...

[elcreative]

What logic... barely said a word, was laughing too much at idealistic, ludicrous unrealism... and as far as much of the free fiction around, it's worth what it costs, still doesn't make a scrap of difference to the right of anybody to be paid for their work whether an author, sculptor, painter, surgeon, street cleaner or a Mr Ploppy...

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

I don't see why. Even if the only people who turn to piracy are the people who are currently buying second hand paperbacks it would still make sense to look at ways of monetising those downloads. And if you doubt that anyone would write just because of a desire to create, you only need to look at all the free fiction on Smashwords or on blogs, or the fanfic sites. None of that stuff will ever make its creators any money, so by your logic it was obviously never written.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by elcreative

What logic... barely said a word, was laughing too much at idealistic, ludicrous unrealism... and as far as much of the free fiction around, it's worth what it costs, still doesn't make a scrap of difference to the right of anybody to be paid for their work whether an author, sculptor, painter, surgeon, street cleaner or a Mr Ploppy...

Just like gnashing your teeth and waving your fists doesn't change what happens in the real world. There was a reason King Canute got his feet wet. He would have been better off renting deckchairs.

[spellbanisher]

The problem with copyright is it tries to create artificial scarcity. That worked with paper books, (I know that copyright covers more than books) but with digital books its almost impossible and usually impractical. With some mediums, like music, television, and movies, creators can still create scarcities. Musicians can make money from live performance and merchandise. The primary profits for movies comes from theaters, where moviegoers pay for the experience more so than for the movie. And of course television makes its money from advertising.

As far as things like books, pictures, web designs, etc, I don't know how you can create scarcities. Cory Doctorow says that the most valuable asset a writer has is his relationship with his readers--that if an author connects with his readers they will buy his books even if they could get them for free. To put it another way, you are less likely to steal from someone you know and like then from a stranger. This strategy works for writers like Doctorow and Peter Watts, but I don't know how it would work if most writers were doing it. Its one thing for a few hip and transgressive individuals to do something, but its entirely different on a large scale.

As far as the moral arguments, I don't see how you can logically argue that we should pay for works that we can get for free just because that is the right thing to do, and then say that a system based on freely giving and taking is impossible because people are immoral or are apt to take more than they give. Your trying to appeal to someone's morality because the alternative system they propose cannot be supported because of their inherent and immutable immorality.

So this is the problem: a market system is based on the notion that everyone acts in their own self-interest. What's better than free? You can argue that in the long run not paying for stuff would have disastrous consequences for society, but in the long run we are all dead.

I don't really have much of a point actually. I'm just wondering about how much government policing and control over the internet people will put up with to ensure there is no piracy. Sometimes copyright defenders can be overzealous, but I also think its clear that many sites that free-culture advocates defend (thepiratebay, megaupload) are dedicated to pirating and probably should be shut down.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by spellbanisher

...

I don't really have much of a point actually......

at least you're right about that part.

[sircastor]

Originally Posted by spellbanisher

The problem with copyright is it tries to create artificial scarcity. That worked with paper books, (I know that copyright covers more than books) but with digital books its almost impossible and usually impractical. With some mediums, like music, television, and movies, creators can still create scarcities. Musicians can make money from live performance and merchandise. The primary profits for movies comes from theaters, where moviegoers pay for the experience more so than for the movie. And of course television makes its money from advertising.

There's an asterisk there being that copyright doesn't create artificial scarcity, it creates the means within the law for an author to make his creation scarce if he so desires.

With physical property scarcity is natural. The paper book isn't scarce because it's copyrighted. It's scarce because printing a book is fairly impractical for most people. The copyright covers the remainder of the people for whom it is practical. It permits the author to seek compensation through the law.

The point there being that If I choose to labor, I have a right to the fruits of my labor. If it's in a field it might be the literal fruit of a tree, or money the owner of the field agreed to pay me. If my labor is writing a book, I am entitled to the fruit of that book so far as I can make it and the value of copyright is that another can't lawfully take that work and claim it as his own (whether he claims authorship or ownership). So I can write my book, and choose what to do with it. I can do the same with the fruit I pick off the tree (tree ownership, field, etc. notwithstanding), it's my labor and my choice what to do with the result.

If no one is willing to exchange for my work, than a copyright is valueless anyway. On the other hand, there are many who will abuse copyright law for outside of it's intentions.

(Also, I'm pretty sure we're on the same side of the argument here...)

[Enkidu of Abydos]

Originally Posted by Giggleton

Written history goes back about 5000 years, during most of this time it was perfectly acceptable to manually copy anothers words and disseminate the knowledge to whomever you so chose. There were of course various people and institutions throughout this history that did not want their words to be copied and distributed. One reason that kept popping up was the idea of a dangerously educated populace, and the fear of this populace recognizing the absurdity of their leader's actions, causing the populace to simply walk right over them.

But for the most part, copying books by hand was a labor intensive process throughout the history of the word, and access to the word was a constant problem. The best books were kept in the best places. Libraries, where books could be read and occasionally lent out to individuals and other libraries.

These libraries, while offering a central place for the word to be accessed, also allowed for the word's eradication by those who wished to diminish the power of the word, the burning and destruction of various large and influential libraries throughout history, the regression of human progress by an unknown amount of time and the loss of knowledge this destruction caused. These are defining reasons for the complete decentralization of all knowledge and the free dissemination of the word.

We are at the dawn of a new age, a technological society that is still afraid of the technology that it possesses. To fully embrace and make use of our new tools, we need to abandon the shackles that tie us to the conceptions of the past.

The word in an electronic format, no linger hindered by the weight of stone, the word can be written by anyone, and shared with everyone. Because it can be, so it will be.

The magnitude of this shift will be severe. Systems that hold onto the past will crumble under the pressure of billions of minds that wish for unfettered access to knowledge. New modes of being will arise spontaneously from this massive thought experiment, be discussed at length and abandoned just as quickly until one ideal is realized that will be the harbinger of the new day.

Copyright?

Yes, you have the right to copy, and now the means to do so, more effectively than ever before!

Hear, hear !

[Enkidu of Abydos]

Originally Posted by Andrew H.

Uninformed drivel came to mind as well.

Interesting, that's just what I thought about some of the posts made by the many copyright proponents on this forum...

[Enkidu of Abydos]

Originally Posted by Maggie Leung

If you're going to pirate, you might try pirating some books on now to write better.

I thought the OP's first post was one of the most creative and best posts I've seen on this forum, if a little idealistic and unrealistic (allright, very idealistic, this captalist money-driven world is far from his lofty ideas but they're still worthy).

[Enkidu of Abydos]

Originally Posted by Giggleton

I'm a fan of the modern gift economy. Take what you need, give what you can. What I, and many others need is access to all knowledge. What we are prepared to give is everything.