People have a natural right to copy. This is suspended by copyright.
However, fair use is only available as a defense. Fair use doesn't come into play until copyright infringement occurs.
Logically, if there's no copyright infringement, there's no need for a defense of fair use.
However, aside from the special case where copying constitutes a violation of privacy, everyone has a right to copy as part of their natural right to liberty. That liberty was derogated to grant an unjust monopoly for the benefit of printers in the 18th century.
I'd buy a $50 share in the cost of a game's production if:
1) It was produced (to spec)
2) It was free software (GPL)
3) It was made freely available to me (via BitTorrent say)
A thousand people interested in the same deal provides a production budget of $50,000.
90% of all 'content' people come across is crud, and that's not surprising given it's usually created precisely to appeal to the largest number of people, i.e. one of umpteen lowest common denominator aesthetics the traditional publishers fancy appealing to.
So, really, that leaves us with only 10% of 'content' that people might even think about liking, let alone consider paying for.
Out of a potential audience of a billion an artist might be happy to reach a subset of a million, which is only going to happen when they produce a particularly good work of art (virally promoted). This might then attract a thousand fans who think the artist is worth paying to produce more.
So, I think the figures in the chart are extremely promising - for artists, but not publishers.
As is happening today and as will increasingly be the case in the future, all published works belong to the public (as was the case prior to copyright). Therefore the only way artists are going to be funded is from people who like what they've already got, and want more. In other words everything will appear to be free, but that's because most people will pay modestly to those tiny few artists they particularly like. Good artists will thus end up well paid.
I suspect that Google executes take-downs with extreme prejudice precisely in order to foment a popular uprising against DMCA/EUCD (and copyright itself for that matter).
The harder the maximalists turn the dial up to MAX, the more the people (whose cultural liberty is so unjustly suspended) will squeal.
Either you persist in attempting to understand the nature of intellectual work in terms of 18th century privileges - and many lawyers and legal scholars can help you in this - some even willing to adopt your corruptions of ownership=copyright and monopoly=property.
Or, you attempt to understand the nature of intellectual work as if copyright had never been granted. And very few people can help you in this because such an unpolluted cultural environment hasn't existed for over three centuries - though people are having to understand it, because it's what we're rapidly reverting to.
I've tried to explain the latter to you, to help you understand, but you stubbornly cling on to the concept of copyright as if it were the handrail of a narrow cliff ledge path.
Get back to me when you've realised that copyright has no future - either as a monopoly or as a way of understanding intellectual work, its production, ownership, treatment as property, and exchange (whether for love or money).
Suzanne, an intellectual work can be owned by whoever can possess it, whether in their brains or in an MP3 player, e.g. I own the ideas in my head even though I haven't set them down on paper. You can't even take them from me by force.
If an intellectual work is identifiable, discrete, fixed in a physical medium (outside the body), and someone can control access to it then it constitutes property, e.g. the poems in my notebook are my (intellectual) property as much as the notebook is my (material) property.
You can refer to the 18th century privilege of copyright until you're blue in the face but it's not that which enables people to own the intellectual work they create or to exchange it as property.
Copyright is simply a state granted monopoly that people can sell to publishers along with any original work they create so that the publishers can prosecute anyone who makes copies (or public performances) without their permission (including the creator).
If I give you a poem then you own the poem as much as if I gave you a chair. You don't need a piece of paper to prove that you own either item. If you obtain either through burglary then I need evidence of that.
I use a poem as an example to keep things simple, because a song can be lyrics, music, vocal performance, recording.
If you attend a poet's public recital, then you own your memory of it (as far as you can recall it). If you record it then you own your recording of it (it is your property). If you transcribe the poem from your memory or your recording then you own the poem you have transcribed (it is your property). If the poet gives you a book of his poetry (or sells it to you) then you own the book and the poetry in it (it is your property).
If you're lucky the poet may recite their poetry for free. Otherwise they may need payment - by those who want them to, possibly including yourself.
Copyright is nothing to do with ownership. It's about suspending people's cultural liberty in order that producers of copies can have a monopoly on their manufacture. As we know, that monopoly is no longer effective at preventing copies - all it's good for is suing fundamentally innocent people. However, abolishing the 18th century privilege of copyright does not put an end to people's ability to own intellectual works or to exchange them as property.
Suzanne, could you quote me where I "rightly point out" those things? I think you'll find I didn't.
You're talking about ownership being defined by copyright. Copyright is the privilege of a monopoly that excludes others from making copies. It's nothing to do with ownership of art. You could be said to be the current holder of the privilege, i.e. 'copyright holder'. However, copyright is still nothing to do with owning art.
Even without copyright I can conceive of a poem and yet it hasn't entered the public domain. I haven't even set it down on paper. When I do write it down it is still my exclusive property, both the words as well as the ink and paper. In order for you to copy it you must either burgle my house and obtain it from me without my authorisation, or you will need to persuade me to give it to you, e.g. offer me money. Alternatively, at some point, possibly never, I may decide to give it away. I might even burn it instead. The public domain is simply 'works readily available to the public whether by dint of publicly accessible location or in wide circulation'. Some people use 'public domain' to mean 'works no longer covered by copyright', but that is a rather specialised meaning (not even recognised by copyright legislation).
If you have redefined 'own' as 'hold the copyright to' or 'have a reproduction monopoly over' then you've changed the language and won't understand me when I use 'own' in the sense of owning a chair (that I don't have a reproduction monopoly over). Consequently for you there cannot be any 'ownership' in the copyright sense without copyright. So you've really caused yourself considerable brain damage. You're not going to understand 'ownership' in the natural sense until you deprogram yourself of copyright.
Even without copyright, I own the poems I write. I also own the poems that other poets sell or give to me (the words and the paper). Just because there's no copyright, this doesn't mean you can burgle my house to obtain the poems I own without my permission.
Copies are nothing to do with it - whoever sells them or gives them away. We are already in the age of free copies.
I can make you a million copies, but this doesn't persuade a musician (who needs to pay the mortgage) to work for nothing.
Of course there will be millions of artists publishing work for nothing - no-one's paying me for these comments I write - and I don't care how many free copies are made of them. If no-one wants me to write then obviously no-one will pay me to. However, for some very good writers, singers, artists, they have fans who are so keen for them to do more great work that they will pay them.
You are so obsessed by copies and copyright you have been blinded to the talent and labour that goes into the production of a studio recording. The copy is not the music. The copy is not the recording.
Copyright is redundant. The only sense in which it is 'in the way' is in blinding you to the art that copies are made from, and the fact that it's an unethical law that enables publishers to persecute the public for making their own free copies.
Have you read the Techdirt story about Kevin Smith trying 'crowdfunding' of his next movie? Or did you not notice it because you are wearing 'Fans won't pay for a movie to be made if there will be free copies of it afterwards' Lainson sunglasses?
Fans funding art instead of publishers is the way to go.
After all it's better that 1% of an audience pay the artist 100%, than 100% of the audience pay the artist 1% (with 99% going to a publisher). The thing is, the publisher is no longer needed because distribution, promotion, and reproduction are free.
Suzanne, the musician and the fans make a deal: "If you pay me $10,000 I'll record a new song". What the fans benefit from and receive is the studio performance of a new song and its recording. That's pretty valuable don't you think? Wouldn't you pay $10 to your favourite singer for them to record a new song? Why is it any different to pay a singer to sing in a recording studio than at a concert? Sure, the concert may have a better vibe through 'being there', but that doesn't mean the studio recording is going to be worthless.
As for the street musician. It depends whether you make a deal with them. If you simply give them $5 because they look like they need it then that's a charitable donation. If you give them $5 because you feel cheered up by their music then that's a tip or reward. If you offer them $5 on condition they play a particular tune, then that would be payment for a performance. If you make a more relaxed deal by saying you'll give them $5 each day they're there playing and you happen to be passing by then that's patronage.
Suzanne, it is only you who have said that "once a song is recorded, it will be available for free everywhere". I've never said that, and it's obviously false.
Once a song is recorded it's entirely up to the producers whether they destroy the recording, keep it to themselves, sell it, or give it away. It's not suddenly free everywhere the moment it's been made (unless perhaps by 'recording' you mean 'recorded via live radio broadcast', but that's a strange definition of recording).
Many fans believe that by attending a concert they are showing support - and they may well be, but this doesn't make it a charity. The band has to say something like "All proceeds are going to charity" or "Free entry".
If you buy a recording you expect delivery (whether by radio, BitTorrent, or a memory stick, HDD, or DVD in the post), however the fact remains you are buying the recording - as a record label would have bought it. You are not buying a copy. Copies are things that record labels sell after they have paid for the recording.
If you have a chair, and are a skilled carpenter able to copy it multiple times, that doesn't affect your ability to own the chair, nor does it affect anyone's ability to own a copy (or to make copies of their copy).
It is only indoctrination by copyright that causes you difficulty in understanding ownership of intellectual work (whether in digital or material copies).
If you stop thinking in terms of the 18th century privilege of copyright then you can understand the true nature of owning material and intellectual works.
If I give you my recipe you own the recipe. It's immaterial that I also own it. People still have to get our permission if they want us to give it to them, or make and sell them a hundred copies of it.
Mike, do you suspect that the objective of IP maximalists posting on TechDirt is not to convert people to their point of view (though they'd be happy at that), but to perpetuate fear, uncertainty and doubt, by preventing people from actually building upon the conclusion that copyright is redundant and unnecessary to business?
While the argument rages on, the tide can be held back. It doesn't need to be won, simply continued.
Their fear is that people might stop arguing, reach a conclusion and act upon it. For when people start prospering without the publishers then the publishers are truly lost. But while an iota of doubt can be maintained in your audience, then they are safe, and your audience will need them to keep the wolf from the door. You are thus a pied piper with a curious audience that while mildly fascinated by your fantasies yet remains reluctant to follow.
In other words Mike, I'm asking you if you think we can figure out a way to move the discussion on? To move on from right/wrong and possible/impossible, to the next level, i.e. the level where we have apprehended its validity and viability as self-evident, that we're now pragmatically concerned with the HOW of it.
Maybe we're not able to do that. Perhaps it is only when everyone and their dog are doing business without copyright and patent (without suing each other for infringing a monopoly) that the discussion of whether it is right or wrong or possible or impossible will finally dry up?
Aren't our energies better directed to assist the early adopters of the new business models than to gainsay the Luddite detractors?
However, even the US Constitution doesn't sanction copyright. It specifies the securing of the author's natural exclusive right (to those writings exclusive to them).
It says nothing about giving congress power to grant monopolies - to be prosecuted at the expense of the holder of that transferable privilege.
It is precisely because people have been indoctrinated with the idea that privileges such as 'copyright' (suspension of the people's right to copy) are 'rights' that they presume the 'right' that 'exclusive right' in the constitution refers to is the privilege of copyright legislated after it.
How can a constitution based upon the equal protection of all individuals' natural rights refer to an inegalitarian privilege that has yet to be granted by congress (albeit already legislated elsewhere)?
To claim grants of monopolies 'promote progress' is obviously a pretext to placate the masses. It would hardly say "For the enrichment of wealthy industrialists we would favour with monopolies by way of receiving favour in turn and the assurance of an obedient press and manufacturing industry".
The ironic thing is The US Constitution was meant to put an end to monopoly. And here we are again today: monopolists arguing with those who would have their natural liberty restored.
The fact that more people might benefit from a work than those who commission it does not define the payment to be a donation or the commissioned worker a charity.
If IBM pays a team of programmers to fix a problem with the Linux kernel this isn't a donation. IBM gets the fix they want in exchange for the money the programmers want. The fact that there is no state granted monopoly covering Linux doesn't render this business transaction an act of charity.
If umpteen thousand concert goers pay umpteen dollars for a ticket in exchange for a band's live performance, the fact that a recording of the performance is uploaded by the band to their website as a free download for the benefit of those who couldn't attend, does not negate the fact that the band's live performance was NOT a charity performance. Money was exchanged by those fans who attended for the performance. The fact that there's a free recording doesn't make the concert a charity event, nor does it mean that concert goers made a donation to a charity when they bought a ticket.
Similarly, that a thousand fans pay an artist $10,000 for a studio recording, isn't transformed from 'business transaction' to 'charitable donation' simply because the recording is not constrained by the monopoly of copyright.
As for ownership. If you sell someone your secret recipe for super-cookies this doesn't mean you have to erase it from your memory. Both you and the purchaser now own the recipe. Both of you can keep it secret or sell it on further. The same applies when you write a song or make a studio recording. You can destroy it (even try to forget it), or you can sell it. But selling it doesn't require you surrender it. You're selling the intellectual work to someone who wants it. The purchaser simply wants to have it - they don't want you to be deprived of it. If bread could be copied as easily and cheaply as words, people wouldn't require as a condition of purchase that the baker of the loaf must surrender or destroy their recipe, memory of it, and all existing copies of that loaf - instead of just providing a loaf to the purchaser. That sort of nastiness is only in the mind of the monopolist who wants to be the only one on the planet able to sell something.
Commerce does not have to be destructive in order to be recognised as business instead of charity.
Yes, I have been trying to explain that the artist traditionally sold their studio recording to the label (in exchange for whatever the contract stipulated), and that this has been the case for decades. So, let's finally agree that the artist is familiar with the process of selling their recording.
Like a label, the artist is also familiar with the process of selling copies of their recording, e.g. CDs via mail order.
However, very few artists are familiar with the process of selling their recording to their fans.
$10,000 is just an example. Obviously the actual amount depends on the artist, the size of their audience, and the number of fans interested in commissioning them to make a recording.
But let's say the artist did accept $10,000 from 1,000 fans in exchange for a studio performance, a recording thereof, and the (copyleft) release of that recording to those fans.
It becomes the property of all those fans (as well as the artist), and it becomes the property of whoever those fans distribute it to, whether for love or money, e.g. via public file-sharing networks.
The artist gets paid $10,000
The fans get a new studio recording of the artist that they wanted.
Everyone keeps their liberty (no-one gets prosecuted for file-sharing, playing it in public, or remixing it, etc.)
You may think $10,000 is too low. Sure, perhaps you have a thousand wealthy fans who can afford $100 each, or a million fans $1. The point is not the price, but the exchange of the recording with the fans for their money - and that it's nothing to do with the sale of copies, or any monopoly.
And no, fans sitting in the studio would pretty much make it a live performance and ticketed event. The fans are only buying the recording, and this enables the artist to sell their work to a global fanbase, without the hassle of everyone having to fly to a large stadium somewhere.
Once the deal has been done, the recording has to be delivered to the fans who commissioned it, e.g. FLAC files via BitTorrent, or even commemorative DVDs (for an additional amount). Those fans can then redistribute it as MP3s and/or remix it as they see fit.
The copy is a means of communicating a music recording, but the copy is not the music, nor the recording.
The music takes talent and is made by talented musicians, whose talent can obtain a high market value.
The recording is not the music. It is a recording OF the music.
The recording takes skill to get 'just right'. Recording engineers' skill can be highly valued.
The copy is not the recording. It is a copy OF the recording.
The copy takes zero skill to produce and takes a microsecond. There is no market for the skill or services of people who make digital copies - because everyone and their dog can make millions of them in double-quick time for next to nothing.
So sell what takes talent and skill - the music and the recording of it. Then the copies are as free as nature makes them.
A studio performance and recording is labour intensive and highly skilled.
Making a copy takes a microprocessor a fraction of a second.
Try and recognise the difference.
Writing a poem - difficult.
Making a photocopy - easy.
Sell the poem. Let people make their own copies for nothing.
Sell the studio recording. Give copies away.
Notice how just before the 'give copies away' bit there's a 'sell recording for money' bit? That's why you can give copies away, because you've sold the recording.
On the post: Is There Any Way To Be A Music Blogger Without Risking Takedown?
Re: Re: Re: Re:
However, fair use is only available as a defense. Fair use doesn't come into play until copyright infringement occurs.
Logically, if there's no copyright infringement, there's no need for a defense of fair use.
However, aside from the special case where copying constitutes a violation of privacy, everyone has a right to copy as part of their natural right to liberty. That liberty was derogated to grant an unjust monopoly for the benefit of printers in the 18th century.
Copyright is ripe for abolition.
On the post: Will People Pay For Content Online?
Re: Re: give me ten grand and ill make you in a year a wicked game of any genre
On the post: Will People Pay For Content Online?
Re: CwF+RtB: Going beyond music
1) It was produced (to spec)
2) It was free software (GPL)
3) It was made freely available to me (via BitTorrent say)
A thousand people interested in the same deal provides a production budget of $50,000.
More popular producers get bigger budgets.
On the post: Will People Pay For Content Online?
Sturgeon's Law!
90% of all 'content' people come across is crud, and that's not surprising given it's usually created precisely to appeal to the largest number of people, i.e. one of umpteen lowest common denominator aesthetics the traditional publishers fancy appealing to.
So, really, that leaves us with only 10% of 'content' that people might even think about liking, let alone consider paying for.
Out of a potential audience of a billion an artist might be happy to reach a subset of a million, which is only going to happen when they produce a particularly good work of art (virally promoted). This might then attract a thousand fans who think the artist is worth paying to produce more.
So, I think the figures in the chart are extremely promising - for artists, but not publishers.
As is happening today and as will increasingly be the case in the future, all published works belong to the public (as was the case prior to copyright). Therefore the only way artists are going to be funded is from people who like what they've already got, and want more. In other words everything will appear to be free, but that's because most people will pay modestly to those tiny few artists they particularly like. Good artists will thus end up well paid.
On the post: Is There Any Way To Be A Music Blogger Without Risking Takedown?
By design
The harder the maximalists turn the dial up to MAX, the more the people (whose cultural liberty is so unjustly suspended) will squeal.
Abolition gets ever closer...
On the post: Yes, If You Don't Do Anything, You Shouldn't Expect People To Just Give You Money
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: What does owning a song mean?
You can't have it both ways.
Either you persist in attempting to understand the nature of intellectual work in terms of 18th century privileges - and many lawyers and legal scholars can help you in this - some even willing to adopt your corruptions of ownership=copyright and monopoly=property.
Or, you attempt to understand the nature of intellectual work as if copyright had never been granted. And very few people can help you in this because such an unpolluted cultural environment hasn't existed for over three centuries - though people are having to understand it, because it's what we're rapidly reverting to.
I've tried to explain the latter to you, to help you understand, but you stubbornly cling on to the concept of copyright as if it were the handrail of a narrow cliff ledge path.
Get back to me when you've realised that copyright has no future - either as a monopoly or as a way of understanding intellectual work, its production, ownership, treatment as property, and exchange (whether for love or money).
On the post: Yes, If You Don't Do Anything, You Shouldn't Expect People To Just Give You Money
Re: Re: Re: What does owning a song mean?
If an intellectual work is identifiable, discrete, fixed in a physical medium (outside the body), and someone can control access to it then it constitutes property, e.g. the poems in my notebook are my (intellectual) property as much as the notebook is my (material) property.
You can refer to the 18th century privilege of copyright until you're blue in the face but it's not that which enables people to own the intellectual work they create or to exchange it as property.
Copyright is simply a state granted monopoly that people can sell to publishers along with any original work they create so that the publishers can prosecute anyone who makes copies (or public performances) without their permission (including the creator).
If I give you a poem then you own the poem as much as if I gave you a chair. You don't need a piece of paper to prove that you own either item. If you obtain either through burglary then I need evidence of that.
I use a poem as an example to keep things simple, because a song can be lyrics, music, vocal performance, recording.
If you attend a poet's public recital, then you own your memory of it (as far as you can recall it). If you record it then you own your recording of it (it is your property). If you transcribe the poem from your memory or your recording then you own the poem you have transcribed (it is your property). If the poet gives you a book of his poetry (or sells it to you) then you own the book and the poetry in it (it is your property).
If you're lucky the poet may recite their poetry for free. Otherwise they may need payment - by those who want them to, possibly including yourself.
Copyright is nothing to do with ownership. It's about suspending people's cultural liberty in order that producers of copies can have a monopoly on their manufacture. As we know, that monopoly is no longer effective at preventing copies - all it's good for is suing fundamentally innocent people. However, abolishing the 18th century privilege of copyright does not put an end to people's ability to own intellectual works or to exchange them as property.
On the post: Yes, If You Don't Do Anything, You Shouldn't Expect People To Just Give You Money
Re: What does owning a song mean?
You're talking about ownership being defined by copyright. Copyright is the privilege of a monopoly that excludes others from making copies. It's nothing to do with ownership of art. You could be said to be the current holder of the privilege, i.e. 'copyright holder'. However, copyright is still nothing to do with owning art.
Even without copyright I can conceive of a poem and yet it hasn't entered the public domain. I haven't even set it down on paper. When I do write it down it is still my exclusive property, both the words as well as the ink and paper. In order for you to copy it you must either burgle my house and obtain it from me without my authorisation, or you will need to persuade me to give it to you, e.g. offer me money. Alternatively, at some point, possibly never, I may decide to give it away. I might even burn it instead. The public domain is simply 'works readily available to the public whether by dint of publicly accessible location or in wide circulation'. Some people use 'public domain' to mean 'works no longer covered by copyright', but that is a rather specialised meaning (not even recognised by copyright legislation).
If you have redefined 'own' as 'hold the copyright to' or 'have a reproduction monopoly over' then you've changed the language and won't understand me when I use 'own' in the sense of owning a chair (that I don't have a reproduction monopoly over). Consequently for you there cannot be any 'ownership' in the copyright sense without copyright. So you've really caused yourself considerable brain damage. You're not going to understand 'ownership' in the natural sense until you deprogram yourself of copyright.
Even without copyright, I own the poems I write. I also own the poems that other poets sell or give to me (the words and the paper). Just because there's no copyright, this doesn't mean you can burgle my house to obtain the poems I own without my permission.
On the post: Yes, If You Don't Do Anything, You Shouldn't Expect People To Just Give You Money
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: I'll keep posting examples.
Copies are nothing to do with it - whoever sells them or gives them away. We are already in the age of free copies.
I can make you a million copies, but this doesn't persuade a musician (who needs to pay the mortgage) to work for nothing.
Of course there will be millions of artists publishing work for nothing - no-one's paying me for these comments I write - and I don't care how many free copies are made of them. If no-one wants me to write then obviously no-one will pay me to. However, for some very good writers, singers, artists, they have fans who are so keen for them to do more great work that they will pay them.
You are so obsessed by copies and copyright you have been blinded to the talent and labour that goes into the production of a studio recording. The copy is not the music. The copy is not the recording.
Copyright is redundant. The only sense in which it is 'in the way' is in blinding you to the art that copies are made from, and the fact that it's an unethical law that enables publishers to persecute the public for making their own free copies.
Have you read the Techdirt story about Kevin Smith trying 'crowdfunding' of his next movie? Or did you not notice it because you are wearing 'Fans won't pay for a movie to be made if there will be free copies of it afterwards' Lainson sunglasses?
On the post: Kevin Smith May Try Crowdfunding Horror Film, Red State, After Fans Offer To Do So
Others too
Fans funding art instead of publishers is the way to go.
After all it's better that 1% of an audience pay the artist 100%, than 100% of the audience pay the artist 1% (with 99% going to a publisher). The thing is, the publisher is no longer needed because distribution, promotion, and reproduction are free.
On the post: Yes, If You Don't Do Anything, You Shouldn't Expect People To Just Give You Money
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: I'll keep posting examples.
As for the street musician. It depends whether you make a deal with them. If you simply give them $5 because they look like they need it then that's a charitable donation. If you give them $5 because you feel cheered up by their music then that's a tip or reward. If you offer them $5 on condition they play a particular tune, then that would be payment for a performance. If you make a more relaxed deal by saying you'll give them $5 each day they're there playing and you happen to be passing by then that's patronage.
On the post: Yes, If You Don't Do Anything, You Shouldn't Expect People To Just Give You Money
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: I'll keep posting examples.
Once a song is recorded it's entirely up to the producers whether they destroy the recording, keep it to themselves, sell it, or give it away. It's not suddenly free everywhere the moment it's been made (unless perhaps by 'recording' you mean 'recorded via live radio broadcast', but that's a strange definition of recording).
Many fans believe that by attending a concert they are showing support - and they may well be, but this doesn't make it a charity. The band has to say something like "All proceeds are going to charity" or "Free entry".
If you buy a recording you expect delivery (whether by radio, BitTorrent, or a memory stick, HDD, or DVD in the post), however the fact remains you are buying the recording - as a record label would have bought it. You are not buying a copy. Copies are things that record labels sell after they have paid for the recording.
If you have a chair, and are a skilled carpenter able to copy it multiple times, that doesn't affect your ability to own the chair, nor does it affect anyone's ability to own a copy (or to make copies of their copy).
It is only indoctrination by copyright that causes you difficulty in understanding ownership of intellectual work (whether in digital or material copies).
If you stop thinking in terms of the 18th century privilege of copyright then you can understand the true nature of owning material and intellectual works.
If I give you my recipe you own the recipe. It's immaterial that I also own it. People still have to get our permission if they want us to give it to them, or make and sell them a hundred copies of it.
On the post: No, Copyright Has Never Been About Protecting Labor
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
While the argument rages on, the tide can be held back. It doesn't need to be won, simply continued.
Their fear is that people might stop arguing, reach a conclusion and act upon it. For when people start prospering without the publishers then the publishers are truly lost. But while an iota of doubt can be maintained in your audience, then they are safe, and your audience will need them to keep the wolf from the door. You are thus a pied piper with a curious audience that while mildly fascinated by your fantasies yet remains reluctant to follow.
In other words Mike, I'm asking you if you think we can figure out a way to move the discussion on? To move on from right/wrong and possible/impossible, to the next level, i.e. the level where we have apprehended its validity and viability as self-evident, that we're now pragmatically concerned with the HOW of it.
Maybe we're not able to do that. Perhaps it is only when everyone and their dog are doing business without copyright and patent (without suing each other for infringing a monopoly) that the discussion of whether it is right or wrong or possible or impossible will finally dry up?
Aren't our energies better directed to assist the early adopters of the new business models than to gainsay the Luddite detractors?
On the post: No, Copyright Has Never Been About Protecting Labor
Re: The REAL reasons
However, even the US Constitution doesn't sanction copyright. It specifies the securing of the author's natural exclusive right (to those writings exclusive to them).
It says nothing about giving congress power to grant monopolies - to be prosecuted at the expense of the holder of that transferable privilege.
It is precisely because people have been indoctrinated with the idea that privileges such as 'copyright' (suspension of the people's right to copy) are 'rights' that they presume the 'right' that 'exclusive right' in the constitution refers to is the privilege of copyright legislated after it.
How can a constitution based upon the equal protection of all individuals' natural rights refer to an inegalitarian privilege that has yet to be granted by congress (albeit already legislated elsewhere)?
To claim grants of monopolies 'promote progress' is obviously a pretext to placate the masses. It would hardly say "For the enrichment of wealthy industrialists we would favour with monopolies by way of receiving favour in turn and the assurance of an obedient press and manufacturing industry".
The ironic thing is The US Constitution was meant to put an end to monopoly. And here we are again today: monopolists arguing with those who would have their natural liberty restored.
On the post: Yes, If You Don't Do Anything, You Shouldn't Expect People To Just Give You Money
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The fact that more people might benefit from a work than those who commission it does not define the payment to be a donation or the commissioned worker a charity.
If IBM pays a team of programmers to fix a problem with the Linux kernel this isn't a donation. IBM gets the fix they want in exchange for the money the programmers want. The fact that there is no state granted monopoly covering Linux doesn't render this business transaction an act of charity.
If umpteen thousand concert goers pay umpteen dollars for a ticket in exchange for a band's live performance, the fact that a recording of the performance is uploaded by the band to their website as a free download for the benefit of those who couldn't attend, does not negate the fact that the band's live performance was NOT a charity performance. Money was exchanged by those fans who attended for the performance. The fact that there's a free recording doesn't make the concert a charity event, nor does it mean that concert goers made a donation to a charity when they bought a ticket.
Similarly, that a thousand fans pay an artist $10,000 for a studio recording, isn't transformed from 'business transaction' to 'charitable donation' simply because the recording is not constrained by the monopoly of copyright.
As for ownership. If you sell someone your secret recipe for super-cookies this doesn't mean you have to erase it from your memory. Both you and the purchaser now own the recipe. Both of you can keep it secret or sell it on further. The same applies when you write a song or make a studio recording. You can destroy it (even try to forget it), or you can sell it. But selling it doesn't require you surrender it. You're selling the intellectual work to someone who wants it. The purchaser simply wants to have it - they don't want you to be deprived of it. If bread could be copied as easily and cheaply as words, people wouldn't require as a condition of purchase that the baker of the loaf must surrender or destroy their recipe, memory of it, and all existing copies of that loaf - instead of just providing a loaf to the purchaser. That sort of nastiness is only in the mind of the monopolist who wants to be the only one on the planet able to sell something.
Commerce does not have to be destructive in order to be recognised as business instead of charity.
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On the post: Ten Good Reasons To Buy
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On the post: Yes, If You Don't Do Anything, You Shouldn't Expect People To Just Give You Money
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Like a label, the artist is also familiar with the process of selling copies of their recording, e.g. CDs via mail order.
However, very few artists are familiar with the process of selling their recording to their fans.
$10,000 is just an example. Obviously the actual amount depends on the artist, the size of their audience, and the number of fans interested in commissioning them to make a recording.
But let's say the artist did accept $10,000 from 1,000 fans in exchange for a studio performance, a recording thereof, and the (copyleft) release of that recording to those fans.
It becomes the property of all those fans (as well as the artist), and it becomes the property of whoever those fans distribute it to, whether for love or money, e.g. via public file-sharing networks.
The artist gets paid $10,000
The fans get a new studio recording of the artist that they wanted.
Everyone keeps their liberty (no-one gets prosecuted for file-sharing, playing it in public, or remixing it, etc.)
You may think $10,000 is too low. Sure, perhaps you have a thousand wealthy fans who can afford $100 each, or a million fans $1. The point is not the price, but the exchange of the recording with the fans for their money - and that it's nothing to do with the sale of copies, or any monopoly.
And no, fans sitting in the studio would pretty much make it a live performance and ticketed event. The fans are only buying the recording, and this enables the artist to sell their work to a global fanbase, without the hassle of everyone having to fly to a large stadium somewhere.
Once the deal has been done, the recording has to be delivered to the fans who commissioned it, e.g. FLAC files via BitTorrent, or even commemorative DVDs (for an additional amount). Those fans can then redistribute it as MP3s and/or remix it as they see fit.
The copy is a means of communicating a music recording, but the copy is not the music, nor the recording.
The music takes talent and is made by talented musicians, whose talent can obtain a high market value.
The recording is not the music. It is a recording OF the music.
The recording takes skill to get 'just right'. Recording engineers' skill can be highly valued.
The copy is not the recording. It is a copy OF the recording.
The copy takes zero skill to produce and takes a microsecond. There is no market for the skill or services of people who make digital copies - because everyone and their dog can make millions of them in double-quick time for next to nothing.
So sell what takes talent and skill - the music and the recording of it. Then the copies are as free as nature makes them.
On the post: Yes, If You Don't Do Anything, You Shouldn't Expect People To Just Give You Money
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Making a copy takes a microprocessor a fraction of a second.
Try and recognise the difference.
Writing a poem - difficult.
Making a photocopy - easy.
Sell the poem. Let people make their own copies for nothing.
Sell the studio recording. Give copies away.
Notice how just before the 'give copies away' bit there's a 'sell recording for money' bit? That's why you can give copies away, because you've sold the recording.
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