Filesharing and ebooks

[Blue Tyson]

You are pretty good at talking for a Big Fish!

[ahi]

Originally Posted by Blue Tyson

You are pretty good at talking for a Big Fish!

Or remarkably tech-savvy for a 13th century Muslim preacher.

- Ahi

[Blue Tyson]

You are pretty good at talking for a dead koran basher!

[ahi]

Originally Posted by Blue Tyson

You are pretty good at talking for a dead koran basher!

I'm starting to lose the thread of this fine line of thinking...

- Ahi

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by Moejoe

In Europe, Art has been subsidized for a long time and a lot of it is created just because we want to further the arts, not make money.

Removing copyright wouldn't remove the ability to make money from the arts--it would just remove the ability to require that the creator has some say in how the art is distributed, and the requirement that the creator gets some of the money.

Copyright was created to keep publishing houses from stealing each others' works by underselling & not paying the authors.

Authors would still write, but they'd have no reason to publish widely, and would have incentives to publish only to small, trusted groups. Same with the other arts. Those who don't care about being famous, but only want to share their art with people they know, wouldn't bother trying for wider distribution.

This is where I believe you couldn't be wronger. The actual costs associated with independent film making are getting smaller and smaller.

There are still costs. And removing copyright protections means that anyone who gets a copy of the movie--by legal means or not--can sell viewings of it, without paying back any of those costs.

Part of why fan-films are made is that even though they aren't expecting to make money, they ARE expecting that nobody else can make money from their work without asking them.

And there's the thing, authors can no longer expect to make a living following their passions, just as a painter can't or a poet.

There's a difference between "can't expect to make money" and "can't stop anyone else from making money from their work."

And if DRM flourished, we would find more and more ways to crack it, more and more ways to distribute freely.

There's plenty of uncracked DRM right now--the kind where you have to be logged into a server to read the content at all. There aren't many people willing to pay a membership fee to get access to DRM'd content to figure out how to crack it.

If one single clean copy exists, then a billion can exist, and we'll make sure they do exist. We won't let your future scenario come to pass. If the content creators want to go that route, then they better hire the brightest and the bold, because you really don't want to piss of the Open Source crowd and their supporters.

The Open Source crowd relies on copyright to protect their right to distribute without charging. Remove that, and corporations who have more money to spend can overwhelm their efforts by grabbing their code and selling the butchered corporate-locked version of it.

One of the reasons Linux got popular is that Microsoft couldn't legally grab it, inflict all sorts of Microcode into it, and distribute it with MS's logo as "THE BEST VERSION OF LINUX," which would fail horribly and convince people that Linux sucked.

It's an interesting thought, but unlikely in your 30 year scenario. We, in all likelihood, won't have libraries in 30 years time (physical that is). And printouts will, if there's any justice in the world, be consigned to a footnote of computer history.

I see you've never lived in a ghetto. Never dealt with schools that keep the same books for 10 years or more, that hold fundraisers to buy fire safety equipment. That keep student records on cards in the office, because they can't afford a computer, and if they could (used computers really are cheap now), can't afford to train anyone on how to use it.

There are still plenty of parts of the US, and many many parts of the rest of the world, where every family does NOT have a computer, and isn't going to in the next 30 years.

There are still areas where electricity is a luxury for the wealthy. (In the US, these areas are very small. In the developing world, they are not.)

And you're saying they'll no longer have libraries?

Copyright doesn't work in favour of the creator, and hasn't since the first ridiculous extensions.

Then roll back the extensions. Make it 28 years, with an option for 28 more, and that's it, and do the same to existing works as was done with the extensions: have it apply retroactively to everything. Put everything before 1953 in the public domain, and give everything before 1928 about 5 years to re-register, or it goes into the public domain.

There's a BIG difference between "modern copyright is so flawed it's hurting more than it's helping" and "all copyright law is useless."

Now it cannot work in a zero-cost, infinitely replicable culture. The content hoarders like Disney and all the other Mega-Hyper-Corps in their rush to control everything, ruined copyright forever.

Why? What would be ruined if the law were scaled back to the proportions it had a hundred years ago?

But they also opened the doors to absolutely free culture. A culture that knows no price, that is created out of joy rather than money.

That culture works on the premise that nobody else can make money from your efforts, either.

Right now, Disney can't grab your short stories & make movies from them. Are you granting them that right? Do you put your works out, not as CC works, but as public domain works?

[Moxie Mezcal]

I'm late coming to this discussion, but Moejoe made a few points that I really liked and wanted to comment on.

Here's what would happen if all copyright ceased to exist tomorrow:

Nothing.

I would still write my stories, so would Stephen King. Young, hungry film directors would still make their cheap films. Actors would still act. Musicians would still pick up their guitars and compose love songs. The world would continue to spin, and art would still be made.

I know a ton of brilliant local artists, musicians, writers, and film makers who create realizing all too well that they probably won't ever make a living solely off of their art. They do things like teaching, graphic design, editing, work-for-hire, or holding down day jobs to pay the bills; they make art out of passion. And I'm not talking about college dropouts or starry-eyed neophytes, I'm talking about people who have been doing this for decades.

Every year we have a indie film festival that draws literally hundreds of movies from around the world. It's not Sundance or Cannes, 99.9% won't make it into theaters or even a wide DVD release. And every year I go and talk to the film makers, some of the most crazy, brilliant, adventurous people I've ever met, and they all say the same thing - it's not about money, it's about doing what you love and sharing it with people, making human connections.

And I live in freakin' San Jose, we barely even count as a real city. Go to any bigger metropolitan area in the world and you'd find an even stronger argument for what I'm talking about - probably in a lot of smaller ones, too.

Somewhere along the line we've been convinced that creativity=job=money. It doesn't. A child is infinitely creative and can provide infinite joy to a parent, a relative, or a similarly atuned adult who sees that child's free drawing upon a page. Nobody expects to pay that child, nor does the child expect payment. Kafka went unpublished and unpaid in his lifetime, but he still HAD to create. Emily Dickinson had less than a dozen of her 800 plus poems published in her lifetime, but she still wrote.

There are a lot more examples of classic artists who continued to create despite going unrecognized in their lifetime, Van Gogh being another of the most oft-cited that springs to mind.

The reactionary, sky-is-falling "without financial incentive, all art would disappear" arguments always strike me as funny because they seem to assume that creativity came into existence with the advent of capitalism.

An artist being able to make a living solely from creating the art that they wanted is actually a relatively new phenomenon as far as human history goes. Go to any non-modern art museum in the world and count the number of commissioned portraits of royalty and aristocrats if you think otherwise. Or hop on wikipedia and see how many famous authors relied on teaching, journalism, or criticism to make ends meet.

This doesn't address the moral issues involved in piracy of course. This is just to dispel the myth that the end of copyright-as-we-know-it would mean the end of art. It would only be the end of the current corporate paradigm of commoditizing art. But if you are really that concerned about the corporations' well-being, I wouldn't worry too much. I have enough faith in capitalism that I'm confident someone would be able to dream up a new scheme for financially exploiting both artist and audience soon enough.

The moral question isn't something I think you'll get far debating, it's just about personal values. I personally take free art to try something new and regularly pay for art from creators that I know I like. Everyone's entitled to their own beliefs though, even though suggesting filesharing is a capital offense and akin to eating babies is I think going a little far in anyone's book, but if that's how you really feel then more power to you.

I personally take more moral issue with an author who believes it's more important to have money in his pocket than to have a copy of his book in the reader's hands. I'd also consider morally-suspect any artists who say they'd stop creating if they couldn't make a living off it. But that's just me.

I'd take an enthusiast, a passionate so-called amateur any day over the beige sludge most of the corps pump out as entertainment to feed the drooling tv-coma masses. Enthusiasm is to be lauded, applauded, not derided and scorned.

Copyright helps only the corporations who end up controlling the copyright. The artist, like the proverbial prostitute hired to perform a spit-roast, is fucked whichever way they turn.

God bless you, Moejoe.

[Moxie Mezcal]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

Copyright was created to keep publishing houses from stealing each others' works by underselling & not paying the authors.

There are plenty of way IP as it currently exists hurts the artist to benefit the corporation for all but the highest echelon of megastars. Look at Danger Mouse's problem releasing "Dark Night of the Soul" (the recording sessions for which personally bankrolled with no involvement from the studio). Or, as an avid comic book fan, I've always been interested in the struggle of Jack Kirby and other creators (and now their heirs) of classic characters to win back some modicum of control over their creations from Marvel/Disney and DC/Warner.

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

Inner-city libraries in poor neighborhoods would stock up on letter-sized printout binders of works from the web. Eew.

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

I see you've never lived in a ghetto. Never dealt with schools that keep the same books for 10 years or more, that hold fundraisers to buy fire safety equipment. That keep student records on cards in the office, because they can't afford a computer, and if they could (used computers really are cheap now), can't afford to train anyone on how to use it.

What's better for those schools? Hundred-dollar hardback textbooks or print-on-demand paper copies? What's better for those libraries? What's better for the environment?

You hold your nose in disdain at the photocopy of a PD or CC work for your inner-city library, ignoring the fact that such an option would exponentially increase the number of books those kids would have access to. Of course, Doubleday won't be pocketing $30 for the glossy hardback of Harry Potter, but I'm more concerned about the kids.

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

Right now, Disney can't grab your short stories & make movies from them. Are you granting them that right? Do you put your works out, not as CC works, but as public domain works?

I can't speak for Moejoe, but personally I use a CC NC-BY-SA license for my own stuff, which I distribute 100% free (except on Amazon because they won't let me list for under $0.99). At the same time, if I woke up tomorrow and saw that Disney had made a movie based on one of my stories, I would be beside myself with glee, even if they hadn't paid me one red cent.

And I'm dead-to-real serious on this one. If anyone knows Bob Iger, you can pass on the message: Moxie Mezcal will not sue you for making a Sweet Dream, Silver Screen movie.

I mean it, Bob. You don't even need to send me an invitation to the premiere or a contributor's copy DVD.

[bavardage]

I just hate the way that it's so much easier for me to pirate ebooks than buy them (the DRM used is incompatible with linux). That combined with geographical restrictions. It's just really stupid.

[PKFFW]

Originally Posted by Moxie Mezcal

I know a ton of brilliant local artists, musicians, writers, and film makers who create realizing all too well that they probably won't ever make a living solely off of their art. They do things like teaching, graphic design, editing, work-for-hire, or holding down day jobs to pay the bills; they make art out of passion. And I'm not talking about college dropouts or starry-eyed neophytes, I'm talking about people who have been doing this for decades.

Every year we have a indie film festival that draws literally hundreds of movies from around the world. It's not Sundance or Cannes, 99.9% won't make it into theaters or even a wide DVD release. And every year I go and talk to the film makers, some of the most crazy, brilliant, adventurous people I've ever met, and they all say the same thing - it's not about money, it's about doing what you love and sharing it with people, making human connections.

That's terrific.

And all those films are covered by copyright whether they make any money from them or not.

Originally Posted by Moxie Mezcal

There are a lot more examples of classic artists who continued to create despite going unrecognized in their lifetime, Van Gogh being another of the most oft-cited that springs to mind.

The reactionary, sky-is-falling "without financial incentive, all art would disappear" arguments always strike me as funny because they seem to assume that creativity came into existence with the advent of capitalism.

An artist being able to make a living solely from creating the art that they wanted is actually a relatively new phenomenon as far as human history goes. Go to any non-modern art museum in the world and count the number of commissioned portraits of royalty and aristocrats if you think otherwise. Or hop on wikipedia and see how many famous authors relied on teaching, journalism, or criticism to make ends meet.

I am not one who argues all art will cease with the abolition of copyright as we know it. I agree that art will continue.

What I disagree with is the attitude that simply because art will continue that makes it ok to exploit those artists without compensation.

Originally Posted by Moxie Mezcal

This doesn't address the moral issues involved in piracy of course. This is just to dispel the myth that the end of copyright-as-we-know-it would mean the end of art. It would only be the end of the current corporate paradigm of commoditizing art. But if you are really that concerned about the corporations' well-being, I wouldn't worry too much. I have enough faith in capitalism that I'm confident someone would be able to dream up a new scheme for financially exploiting both artist and audience soon enough.

The moral question isn't something I think you'll get far debating, it's just about personal values. I personally take free art to try something new and regularly pay for art from creators that I know I like. Everyone's entitled to their own beliefs though, even though suggesting filesharing is a capital offense and akin to eating babies is I think going a little far in anyone's bookbut if that's how you really feel then more power to you.

Good to see the hyperbole is alive and well. I'm not aware of anyone having claimed "file-sharing" is a capital offence akin to eating babies.

As you say, your arguments, cogent and well put as they are, do not address the moral issue. Like you say, debating that on a forum board wont get anyone very far. In fact it is clearly something that most who advocate "file-sharing" do not wish to address.

Originally Posted by Moxie Mezcal

I personally take more moral issue with an author who believes it's more important to have money in his pocket than to have a copy of his book in the reader's hands. I'd also consider morally-suspect any artists who say they'd stop creating if they couldn't make a living off it. But that's just me.

The old "money is bad, mmmkay" argument.

I'm at a loss to underestand how, if someone creates a work of art and would like to make money from their efforts, that is more morally suspect than if another person simply comes in and decides they will acquire access to the creators efforts without any compensation at all to the creator. In any other field of endeavour that attitude would be laughable.

I guess the consumers rights simply trump the creators rights. Of course that must be because "money is bad, mmmmkay!"

Cheers,
PKFFW

[Moejoe]

Originally Posted by Moxie Mezcal

There are plenty of way IP as it currently exists hurts the artist to benefit the corporation for all but the highest echelon of megastars. Look at Danger Mouse's problem releasing "Dark Night of the Soul" (the recording sessions for which personally bankrolled with no involvement from the studio). Or, as an avid comic book fan, I've always been interested in the struggle of Jack Kirby and other creators (and now their heirs) of classic characters to win back some modicum of control over their creations from Marvel/Disney and DC/Warner.





What's better for those schools? Hundred-dollar hardback textbooks or print-on-demand paper copies? What's better for those libraries? What's better for the environment?

You hold your nose in disdain at the photocopy of a PD or CC work for your inner-city library, ignoring the fact that such an option would exponentially increase the number of books those kids would have access to. Of course, Doubleday won't be pocketing $30 for the glossy hardback of Harry Potter, but I'm more concerned about the kids.



I can't speak for Moejoe, but personally I use a CC NC-BY-SA license for my own stuff, which I distribute 100% free (except on Amazon because they won't let me list for under $0.99). At the same time, if I woke up tomorrow and saw that Disney had made a movie based on one of my stories, I would be beside myself with glee, even if they hadn't paid me one red cent.

And I'm dead-to-real serious on this one. If anyone knows Bob Iger, you can pass on the message: Moxie Mezcal will not sue you for making a Sweet Dream, Silver Screen movie.

I mean it, Bob. You don't even need to send me an invitation to the premiere or a contributor's copy DVD.

The license I use is...crap I can't remember, it's basically do what the f**k you like as long as you don't make any green from it. But where I do differ from you (and the reason I don't put my stuff into the Public Domain as I'd like) is that I don't want Homogenous companies like Disney and Mega-Global-Hyper-Mega-Net making profits from my work (they've already been doing that for 60 years the cheeky *** with PD works). I would raise Disneyland to the ground if I heard they'd used one of my stories as a springboard for their terrible, ever more dull, mulch. And failing that I'd go round and personally punch every single one of the corporate board.

But that's just my opinion

I've often thought it would be a fun experiment to approach the traditional publishing game as a kind of story-within-a-story. Invent a character, write up a couple of chapters and an outline, then go the 'usual' route - send it off to an agent, blah blah blah, but all the while the actual 'real' book would be about how the industry works and, more truthfully, how little it does work in favour of the author. Damn, I might just do that this week.

[pholy]

What Elfwreck was trying to point out is that the Gnu Public License, the Creative Commons licenses, and all the 'open source' licenses are entirely dependent on the existence of copyright law. Without copyright, you have no licenses. We need to fix copyright so that it works for human creators and human consumers first, with a lot less input from corporate lawyers and lobbyists.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by Moxie Mezcal

What's better for those schools? Hundred-dollar hardback textbooks or print-on-demand paper copies? What's better for those libraries? What's better for the environment?

You hold your nose in disdain at the photocopy of a PD or CC work for your inner-city library, ignoring the fact that such an option would exponentially increase the number of books those kids would have access to. Of course, Doubleday won't be pocketing $30 for the glossy hardback of Harry Potter, but I'm more concerned about the kids.

I wasn't talking about copies of PD or CC works; the discussion was about no copyright whatsoever. All works would be available to anyone who manages to copy them.

I don't like the idea of photocopy/printout works in libraries, which increase the obvious divide between rich communities and poor communities. I don't think students from poor neighborhoods need *more* reminders of how much they're forced to make do with freebies. Right now, rich and poor kids alike can read popular novels that look the same on the outside. Rich kids can buy them; poor kids can borrow them. Removal of copyright will encourage poor libraries to cut corners by printing them, in tiny type to save paper, instead of buying them. Poor kids won't want to be seen reading, because they'll know that declares their poverty to the world.

We've got enough problems convincing kids in poor neighborhoods to read--they think it's "geeky" and not related to "real life." Tie reading into an announcement of income level and that battle is lost.

However, printouts are certainly better than no books, which seems to be Moejoe's other idea--print of all sorts will vanish; the middle-class will all have computer screens of some sort to read from, and the poorest members of society will slowly slip into illiteracy, as daily leisure reading just won't be part of their lives.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by Moejoe

I would raise Disneyland to the ground if I heard they'd used one of my stories as a springboard for their terrible, ever more dull, mulch. And failing that I'd go round and personally punch every single one of the corporate board.

But you're advocating for Disney to have the right to use your stories however they like, without contacting you at all about it. Copyright is what keeps them from scouring the web for good stories & scripts, and using them with impunity.

What makes you think that if copyright went away, Disney would be less powerful? Oh, they'd lose control of their works--but that's nothing compared to the amount of money they could make if they didn't have to pay anyone for use of their art.

And there'd still be plenty of artists willing to work for Disney, with work-for-hire contracts that forbid them from using their own materials for profit. There are plenty of people who do this now; there aren't going to be less of them if copyright law goes away.

[bavardage]

Personally I'm not against copyright. I'm against the huge length of copyright, against DRM and against the stupid restrictions (i.e. format shifting is not allowed).

Authors should get recognition for their work, sure, but on the other hand who needs recognition 70 years after they are dead?

[ahi]

Originally Posted by bavardage

I just hate the way that it's so much easier for me to pirate ebooks than buy them (the DRM used is incompatible with linux). That combined with geographical restrictions. It's just really stupid.

It's the invisible hand of the market.

- Ahi