All the major labels had roughly the same "standard" contract. That included assigning all the rights to the recordings, and it was not a point that the labels were willing to negotiate. There are very few cases where artists retained their copyrights, but these are all well-known, gold or platinum artists who were able to negotiate this in their second contract with the labels. You can very nearly count them on one hand.
And unless you signed with a major, you could not get on commercial radio, could not play most of the larger venues, and could not get your records into national record stores. The major labels acted (and act) collectively, essentially forming a total monopoly on music.
So, no, you weren't "forced." You were only "required" to assign the rights if you hoped to actually make a living at your art.
Many of those same artists use the work and it's wide distribution and promotion to be able to build a fan base and charge for access to their live shows.
Yes, they did, but this revenue stream is unaffected by piracy (it's actually increased in the past ten years). In fact, you don't need copyright at all to do this.
If they are forced back to working at the 7-11 after that, they likely are not the artist that the public wants to hear from, read, or buy art from, plain and simple.
We're talking artists that sold units in the tens of thousands, sometimes the hundreds of thousands. That simply isn't enough to make money under the old major label system.
There is no unlimited source of revenue to pay people who feel they are an artist, the system is built so that those who are appreciated by the public can make a living being an artist.
You're right, there is not an unlimited source of money. But under the old label system, the vast majority of that money did not go to the creative artist at all.
Most of the people under that system could not make a sustainable living, whether they were appreciated by the public or not. Most songwriters could not write songs unless they spent their time performing for the public; most book writers who are not good public speakers were forced to do speaking tours or lectures. The ones who didn't have to do this were a small, small, small minority of songwriters or authors. That was (and is) true even among the songwriters or authors on major labels or who were signed with big publishing houses.
Again, if you look at the top grossing artists on major labels, nearly all of them made a tiny percentage of their income from royalties. They all make their money from other things - live touring, product endorsements, etc.
The notion that copyright helps artists make money, is almost entirely a myth. It is a myth that naive artists believe, in the same way that they believe copyright is some sort of "natural right" earned by their labor, but it is a myth nonetheless. It is like the myth of the "rock star lifestyle:" something that is deliberately promulgated by people who earn their money off of artists, in order to keep a fresh supply of labor to stock the plantation.
Would you, as Mike Masnick appears to want to, deny the artists the rights to own the material they create?
Neither myself nor Mike are copyright abolitionists. Mike wants copyright to fundamentally benefit the general public - which, not coincidentally, is also copyright's Constitutional purpose.
I personally want to see copyright continue. I simply recognize that the current form is an abomination. It hurts artists more than it helps them, and it does tremendous damage to the public good.
Specifically, I would start by re-legalizing all forms of non-commercial copying and distribution. I would also like to see copyright transfers abolished by law: copyright "ownership" should remain with the artists, and only licenses should be allowed. There are a few other things I'd like to see, but listing them would make this a novel-length reply.
It would be hard for you to honestly deny that ownership and control of an end product is good for artists.
Under copyright law, most artists did not have ownerhip or control over the end product. They were forced to assign ownership and control of their copyrights to a third party (record labels, publishers, or studios), and merely received some form of royalties due to the copyright owner's exploitation of these rights.
And even then, they made the vast majority of their income through other means. For example, in 2004, the highest grossing artist was Paul McCartney. He made less than 15% of his income through copyright royalties.
Without some form of protection, there is a good possiblity that many of today's top artists would not be able to be artists on a full time basis, and would instead have to spend their time earning a living in other ways.
Even with this protection, the vast majority of creative artists were forced to make their living "in other ways." Of the artists who were actually signed to labels (a very small minority), 9 out of 10 were forced to make their living outside of copyright industries. Less than 10% of artists on a major label wer ever able to recoup their costs, meaning that they made not one cent on artist royatlies. They were eventually forced to make their living in other ways (such as working at the local 7-11) in order to make ends meet.
Whatever you think copyright accomplishes, allowing artists to make a living at their art was never one of them.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: WHOA! Stop at: "everyone just wants stuff for free".
I'm not asking Mike to debate me HERE.
Even if we believed that (which none of us here do), it's still completely wrong.
You have, repeatedly, asked Mike to debate you in these very comments.
Examples:
What variables are there? How are they weighted? How does one measure them? And what about all the things that simply cannot be measured? How do you account for that?[...]
Thoughts? I'd love to hear the details of how you think we obtain and agree upon this data. [...]
Let's assume that it's true that the biggest infringers are the biggest spenders. So what? What exactly do you think we should do about that fact, Mike?
In response to Mike's rational silence to your insulting and irrational comments, you insult him personally and misrepresent everything he's said on this site:
Mike never takes a concrete stand on copyright. He pretends like he is completely unable to form a solid opinion on things. And he claims that since he doesn't know something for a fact with 100% certainty, he is unable to form an opinion on it. [...]
Yeah, I'm pointing out that he isn't saying anything concrete or helpful. [...]
Does Mike tell us how to measure the progress? No. It's high-level rhetoric. [...]
I enjoy pointing out that Mike is too scared to ever talk about the specifics of his beliefs about copyright. [...]
Where does Mike explain his personal beliefs about the morality of infringement? No where. [...]
[Mike] wants to promote the progress so long as we don't do it by granting to authors exclusive rights. It's important to pretend like the two aren't interrelated since he hates the means so much. [...]
You fit right in with Mike's Army. With that logic, we should chuck every single thing that exists on earth.
You're not here for debate. You're not giving your impartial opinion. You are nothing other than an extremist advocate, whose motivations are to smear anyone who disagrees with your radical agenda.
Did David Hume actually tell us how to measure the speed of light in a vacuum? No, he didn't.
On the other hand, Hume gave us a "framework" for discovering how light traveled in a vacuum. That framework was empirical science. Hume said that unless your data about how fast light traveled was accompanied by actual, measured, empirical data, it shouldn't even be considered a scientific discovery.
Mike is saying something similar. Unless potential copyright statutes can actually be empirically proven to provide a public benefit, they should not be considered "good" copyright statutes. This is entirely in accord with copyright law, from the Founders forward. If, on the other hand, copyright statutes are only alleged to be for the public benefit, without any data whatsoever to back this assertion up, then they should be disregarded - exactly as Hume disregarded any scientific theory that was not based on empirical evidence.
The fact that it has taken copyright law centuries to catch up to scientific theory, says that copyright law is outdated, illogical, and not even remotely scientific. It condemns copyright law to the same kind of "truthiness" that said that the sun revolves around the earth.
This sounds good as a high-level principle, but you never explain exactly how we measure the "the progress."
Well, except when he said this: "If we go by the originalist mandate, 'science' was the part that copyright was about, and it meant 'learning.' The framers of the Constitution were focused on promoting learning and education via copyright, not a specific entertainment business."
But since Mike explicitly called this a "framework," your statement isn't even a criticism. This isn't a "solution" to questions about copyright law, it's a systematic approach to answering the questions.
For the record, the Supreme Court has defined it as "promoting broad public availability of literature, music, and the other arts." (Twentieth Century Music Corp. v. Aiken.) I think the court got it right.
Oh look. More sweeping pronouncements stated as fact that are not based on any evidence.
Exactly like your statement about Mike, which is part of the point.
The other part of the point is that your stated opinions have never been about benefiting creative artists. They have only been about using and abusing the law to go after supposed "pirates."
You yourself have stated outright that it doesn't matter whether the infringement actually does any harm to the creative artists. You yourself have supported people who go after "pirates," but are in no way related to the creative artists. You yourself have called people "pirates" who are only trying to enjoy the content that they paid for, thus supported the artists. (That's assuming that paying for content actually benefits the actual creative artists, which is often not true.)
No matter who your friends are, your viewpoints support infringement lawsuits and the lawyers who benefit from them. And nothing else.
So artists don't matter? Techies don't matter? I don't agree.
I don't agree either, but that's not what I said. For the purposes of copyright law, artists matter because art matters to the public. "Techies" matter because technology matters to the public.
What matter is the public use of art and technology. Whatever benefits the public use is a good under copyright law; whatever limits the public use is an evil under copyright law.
But we give the exclusive rights to the artists/authors so that in turn can benefit the public. We don't give the rights to the public first.
We couldn't "give rights to the public first," because those rights are removed from the public in order to create copyright rights in the first place. The rights that the public holds are free speech rights. Copyright removes some of those free speech rights from everyone except the author, who now has the "exclusive right" to those free speech rights.
In theory, these rights are voluntarily given up by the public, and held exclusively by authors, because granting authors a monopoly will incentivize authors to make more works available for public use. (A use which is temporarily limited by copyright law.) The public does this, because the public benefits more from the use of those works, than it loses by giving up those particular free speech rights.
"Protecting" copyright industries has little to do with copyright law, exactly as "protecting" technology industries has little to do with copyright law. The sole gauge of copyright's success is in determining how much those laws benefit the general public.
And yet I said: "Of course the public is a stakeholder too . . . ."
..."at the ballot box," then said their interest was "derivative" of the interests of artists and "techies."
That's not a stakeholder, that's an onlooker. A stakeholder is invited to actively participate, and their interests are considered primary. To be a stakeholder, the public absolutely must have groups at the table who represent their interests: free speech groups, civil liberties groups, educational groups, organizations representing public libraries, groups representing the blind or disabled, and so forth.
Unless these groups are provided at least as much input as private industry organizations (whether entertainment or technology), the whole process is flawed.
it does boil down to your tech buddies vs. my artist friends.
You don't have "artist friends." You have "lawyer friends."
And part of Mike's job is to do consulting work for artists, to help them make more money. So, he has "artist friends" too.
The public's interest is derivative of those two interests.
This is flat-out ridiculous. The public's interest is the only interest that matters.
This is to say that the public doesn't benefit from artists and technology - certainly, they do. But as far a copyright is concerned, those two interests are derivative of the public's interest. Not the other way around.
I know you love to pretend that the public isn't a stakeholder, that they're just onlookers in the copyright debates. They're not.
Re: Re: Re: Re: WHOA! Stop at: "everyone just wants stuff for free".
On another note, NOW can you shut up about Mike not having a stance?
That's not the same A.C. The whiny, "debate meeeee!!!" A.C. is in fact Average Joe.
Average Joe would never, in a million years, say something like "IP is a privilege provided for by the government and no one is entitled to anything the government provides."
You know, a friend of mine (and someone who is putting out one of my LP's) does sound design for Turbine. I was considering asking him if I could get a job programming there, after I graduate. I probably won't now.
I'll have to ask him if it's possible to talk some sense into his boss...
And he thinks piracy is not OK because (and only because) the victims don't like it. Reminds me of the argument that rape victims should just like it.
The fact that you just equated rape - a crime of violence, involving physical violation - with copyright infringement - which involves no violence, no physical violation, and affects the "victims" so little that they can't even tell when it happens - shows that you have no moral center whatsoever.
But, leaving that aside, and saying for the sake of argument that they are even vaguely equivalent, what your saying still doesn't make any sense.
Because if copyright infringement were rape, Mike would be saying, "rape is not OK, because it happens against the victim's will."
This is not very controversial, and it is not even remotely like the argument that rape victims "should just like it."
So, not only are you an immoral scumbag, you're a lying immoral scumbag.
Maybe the Attorney General is privy to evidence that you are not?
Maybe he - or anyone else, ever - should actually show any evidence to back up his claim.
After all, Holder is the one claiming there is a connection to terrorism. The burden of proof is on him to provide evidence for his assertion.
He has provided none. Nobody else has provided any. The reason is that none exists.
And before you ask Mike to show "that there is no such evidence," you know very well that this is factually impossible. You can't prove a negative.
Example: there is no evidence whatsoever that Santa Claus does not exist. That does not mean that Santa Claus exists. And it does not mean that, if someone asserts that Santa Claus does in fact exist, we can't rake him or her over the coals for it.
I meant "another one of his favorites," not another one that was shown to be illegal.
Take note, however, that he did also defend Righthaven (by claiming the Silvers court was "wrong"). Though, to his credit, he did say "the lawsuits border on vexatious." So, calling them one of his "favorites" would not be accurate.
I'm sure Hart is your hero. He ran Copyhype while he was still in law school, and obviously attracted the attention of the "Big Content" copyright holders. Because, soon after passing the Pennsylvania bar exam, he became Director of Legal Policy for the Copyright Alliance. All without ever stepping foot in a courtroom, or even (so far as I know) without ever having worked for any law firm.
So, keep it up, and soon the MPAA and RIAA will be signing your checks, too!
An analogy: the people who drive cars are a small part of humans in general, but they are a large part of the market for people who buy gasoline.
Actually, I saw that it was a bad analogy as soon as I made it.
The people who drive cars are a small part of those humans who need to quickly get from Point A to Point B.
They are a large part of the market for those who buy gasoline. But the people who drive cars are a small portion of the people who 1. Drive cars, 2. Ride the subway, 3. Bike, 4. Walk.
What you're saying - exactly - is: if you don't like the price of gas, don't drive. But that only means that more people will bike, take the subway, or walk.
And all of those people will result in exactly the same losses to the driving industry, as if they'd simply acquired gasoline for free. Moreover, they will get used to doing without gasoline.
If you're living in a world where nobody drives anymore, what would you do?
If you discourage people from consuming. You will also discourage them from buying. If you get them accustomed to "doing without" when they are in a poor position to pay, then they may never bother at all.
On the post: A Framework For Copyright Reform
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: A sad misunderstanding
All the major labels had roughly the same "standard" contract. That included assigning all the rights to the recordings, and it was not a point that the labels were willing to negotiate. There are very few cases where artists retained their copyrights, but these are all well-known, gold or platinum artists who were able to negotiate this in their second contract with the labels. You can very nearly count them on one hand.
And unless you signed with a major, you could not get on commercial radio, could not play most of the larger venues, and could not get your records into national record stores. The major labels acted (and act) collectively, essentially forming a total monopoly on music.
So, no, you weren't "forced." You were only "required" to assign the rights if you hoped to actually make a living at your art.
Many of those same artists use the work and it's wide distribution and promotion to be able to build a fan base and charge for access to their live shows.
Yes, they did, but this revenue stream is unaffected by piracy (it's actually increased in the past ten years). In fact, you don't need copyright at all to do this.
If they are forced back to working at the 7-11 after that, they likely are not the artist that the public wants to hear from, read, or buy art from, plain and simple.
We're talking artists that sold units in the tens of thousands, sometimes the hundreds of thousands. That simply isn't enough to make money under the old major label system.
There is no unlimited source of revenue to pay people who feel they are an artist, the system is built so that those who are appreciated by the public can make a living being an artist.
You're right, there is not an unlimited source of money. But under the old label system, the vast majority of that money did not go to the creative artist at all.
Most of the people under that system could not make a sustainable living, whether they were appreciated by the public or not. Most songwriters could not write songs unless they spent their time performing for the public; most book writers who are not good public speakers were forced to do speaking tours or lectures. The ones who didn't have to do this were a small, small, small minority of songwriters or authors. That was (and is) true even among the songwriters or authors on major labels or who were signed with big publishing houses.
Again, if you look at the top grossing artists on major labels, nearly all of them made a tiny percentage of their income from royalties. They all make their money from other things - live touring, product endorsements, etc.
The notion that copyright helps artists make money, is almost entirely a myth. It is a myth that naive artists believe, in the same way that they believe copyright is some sort of "natural right" earned by their labor, but it is a myth nonetheless. It is like the myth of the "rock star lifestyle:" something that is deliberately promulgated by people who earn their money off of artists, in order to keep a fresh supply of labor to stock the plantation.
Would you, as Mike Masnick appears to want to, deny the artists the rights to own the material they create?
Neither myself nor Mike are copyright abolitionists. Mike wants copyright to fundamentally benefit the general public - which, not coincidentally, is also copyright's Constitutional purpose.
I personally want to see copyright continue. I simply recognize that the current form is an abomination. It hurts artists more than it helps them, and it does tremendous damage to the public good.
Specifically, I would start by re-legalizing all forms of non-commercial copying and distribution. I would also like to see copyright transfers abolished by law: copyright "ownership" should remain with the artists, and only licenses should be allowed. There are a few other things I'd like to see, but listing them would make this a novel-length reply.
On the post: A Framework For Copyright Reform
Re: Re: Re: Re: A sad misunderstanding
On the post: A Framework For Copyright Reform
Re: Re: Re: A sad misunderstanding
Under copyright law, most artists did not have ownerhip or control over the end product. They were forced to assign ownership and control of their copyrights to a third party (record labels, publishers, or studios), and merely received some form of royalties due to the copyright owner's exploitation of these rights.
And even then, they made the vast majority of their income through other means. For example, in 2004, the highest grossing artist was Paul McCartney. He made less than 15% of his income through copyright royalties.
Without some form of protection, there is a good possiblity that many of today's top artists would not be able to be artists on a full time basis, and would instead have to spend their time earning a living in other ways.
Even with this protection, the vast majority of creative artists were forced to make their living "in other ways." Of the artists who were actually signed to labels (a very small minority), 9 out of 10 were forced to make their living outside of copyright industries. Less than 10% of artists on a major label wer ever able to recoup their costs, meaning that they made not one cent on artist royatlies. They were eventually forced to make their living in other ways (such as working at the local 7-11) in order to make ends meet.
Whatever you think copyright accomplishes, allowing artists to make a living at their art was never one of them.
On the post: A Framework For Copyright Reform
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: WHOA! Stop at: "everyone just wants stuff for free".
Even if we believed that (which none of us here do), it's still completely wrong.
You have, repeatedly, asked Mike to debate you in these very comments.
Examples:
In response to Mike's rational silence to your insulting and irrational comments, you insult him personally and misrepresent everything he's said on this site:
You're not here for debate. You're not giving your impartial opinion. You are nothing other than an extremist advocate, whose motivations are to smear anyone who disagrees with your radical agenda.
On the post: A Framework For Copyright Reform
Re: Re: Re:
Let's apply it to scientific progress.
Did David Hume actually tell us how to measure the speed of light in a vacuum? No, he didn't.
On the other hand, Hume gave us a "framework" for discovering how light traveled in a vacuum. That framework was empirical science. Hume said that unless your data about how fast light traveled was accompanied by actual, measured, empirical data, it shouldn't even be considered a scientific discovery.
Mike is saying something similar. Unless potential copyright statutes can actually be empirically proven to provide a public benefit, they should not be considered "good" copyright statutes. This is entirely in accord with copyright law, from the Founders forward. If, on the other hand, copyright statutes are only alleged to be for the public benefit, without any data whatsoever to back this assertion up, then they should be disregarded - exactly as Hume disregarded any scientific theory that was not based on empirical evidence.
The fact that it has taken copyright law centuries to catch up to scientific theory, says that copyright law is outdated, illogical, and not even remotely scientific. It condemns copyright law to the same kind of "truthiness" that said that the sun revolves around the earth.
On the post: A Framework For Copyright Reform
Re:
Well, except when he said this: "If we go by the originalist mandate, 'science' was the part that copyright was about, and it meant 'learning.' The framers of the Constitution were focused on promoting learning and education via copyright, not a specific entertainment business."
But since Mike explicitly called this a "framework," your statement isn't even a criticism. This isn't a "solution" to questions about copyright law, it's a systematic approach to answering the questions.
For the record, the Supreme Court has defined it as "promoting broad public availability of literature, music, and the other arts." (Twentieth Century Music Corp. v. Aiken.) I think the court got it right.
On the post: A Framework For Copyright Reform
Re: Re: Re:
Exactly like your statement about Mike, which is part of the point.
The other part of the point is that your stated opinions have never been about benefiting creative artists. They have only been about using and abusing the law to go after supposed "pirates."
You yourself have stated outright that it doesn't matter whether the infringement actually does any harm to the creative artists. You yourself have supported people who go after "pirates," but are in no way related to the creative artists. You yourself have called people "pirates" who are only trying to enjoy the content that they paid for, thus supported the artists. (That's assuming that paying for content actually benefits the actual creative artists, which is often not true.)
No matter who your friends are, your viewpoints support infringement lawsuits and the lawyers who benefit from them. And nothing else.
So artists don't matter? Techies don't matter? I don't agree.
I don't agree either, but that's not what I said. For the purposes of copyright law, artists matter because art matters to the public. "Techies" matter because technology matters to the public.
What matter is the public use of art and technology. Whatever benefits the public use is a good under copyright law; whatever limits the public use is an evil under copyright law.
But we give the exclusive rights to the artists/authors so that in turn can benefit the public. We don't give the rights to the public first.
We couldn't "give rights to the public first," because those rights are removed from the public in order to create copyright rights in the first place. The rights that the public holds are free speech rights. Copyright removes some of those free speech rights from everyone except the author, who now has the "exclusive right" to those free speech rights.
In theory, these rights are voluntarily given up by the public, and held exclusively by authors, because granting authors a monopoly will incentivize authors to make more works available for public use. (A use which is temporarily limited by copyright law.) The public does this, because the public benefits more from the use of those works, than it loses by giving up those particular free speech rights.
"Protecting" copyright industries has little to do with copyright law, exactly as "protecting" technology industries has little to do with copyright law. The sole gauge of copyright's success is in determining how much those laws benefit the general public.
And yet I said: "Of course the public is a stakeholder too . . . ."
..."at the ballot box," then said their interest was "derivative" of the interests of artists and "techies."
That's not a stakeholder, that's an onlooker. A stakeholder is invited to actively participate, and their interests are considered primary. To be a stakeholder, the public absolutely must have groups at the table who represent their interests: free speech groups, civil liberties groups, educational groups, organizations representing public libraries, groups representing the blind or disabled, and so forth.
Unless these groups are provided at least as much input as private industry organizations (whether entertainment or technology), the whole process is flawed.
On the post: Bogus Lawsuit Plus Threats To Those Who Write About It Leads To Epic Response
Re: Re: Uh oh
Aha. I knew Turbine was sold to Warner. I didn't know that Monsarrat was one of the people who cashed out.
That makes me feel better... at least for my friend, knowing that he doesn't have to work for this guy.
On the post: A Framework For Copyright Reform
Re:
You don't have "artist friends." You have "lawyer friends."
And part of Mike's job is to do consulting work for artists, to help them make more money. So, he has "artist friends" too.
The public's interest is derivative of those two interests.
This is flat-out ridiculous. The public's interest is the only interest that matters.
This is to say that the public doesn't benefit from artists and technology - certainly, they do. But as far a copyright is concerned, those two interests are derivative of the public's interest. Not the other way around.
I know you love to pretend that the public isn't a stakeholder, that they're just onlookers in the copyright debates. They're not.
On the post: A Framework For Copyright Reform
Re: Re: Re: Re: WHOA! Stop at: "everyone just wants stuff for free".
That's not the same A.C. The whiny, "debate meeeee!!!" A.C. is in fact Average Joe.
Average Joe would never, in a million years, say something like "IP is a privilege provided for by the government and no one is entitled to anything the government provides."
On the post: Bogus Lawsuit Plus Threats To Those Who Write About It Leads To Epic Response
Uh oh
I'll have to ask him if it's possible to talk some sense into his boss...
On the post: Eric Holder Claims Terrorists Are Involved In 'IP Theft'
Re: Re:
The fact that you just equated rape - a crime of violence, involving physical violation - with copyright infringement - which involves no violence, no physical violation, and affects the "victims" so little that they can't even tell when it happens - shows that you have no moral center whatsoever.
But, leaving that aside, and saying for the sake of argument that they are even vaguely equivalent, what your saying still doesn't make any sense.
Because if copyright infringement were rape, Mike would be saying, "rape is not OK, because it happens against the victim's will."
This is not very controversial, and it is not even remotely like the argument that rape victims "should just like it."
So, not only are you an immoral scumbag, you're a lying immoral scumbag.
On the post: Eric Holder Claims Terrorists Are Involved In 'IP Theft'
Re:
Maybe he - or anyone else, ever - should actually show any evidence to back up his claim.
After all, Holder is the one claiming there is a connection to terrorism. The burden of proof is on him to provide evidence for his assertion.
He has provided none. Nobody else has provided any. The reason is that none exists.
And before you ask Mike to show "that there is no such evidence," you know very well that this is factually impossible. You can't prove a negative.
Example: there is no evidence whatsoever that Santa Claus does not exist. That does not mean that Santa Claus exists. And it does not mean that, if someone asserts that Santa Claus does in fact exist, we can't rake him or her over the coals for it.
On the post: Center For Copyright Information Loses Company Status, Not Supposed To Conduct Business In The US
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Yup.
The technical term for this is "sock puppet." Something you have been accusing Mike of doing - falsely - for years.
On the post: Center For Copyright Information Loses Company Status, Not Supposed To Conduct Business In The US
Re: Re: Re: Yup.
On the post: Center For Copyright Information Loses Company Status, Not Supposed To Conduct Business In The US
Re: Re: Yup.
I meant "another one of his favorites," not another one that was shown to be illegal.
Take note, however, that he did also defend Righthaven (by claiming the Silvers court was "wrong"). Though, to his credit, he did say "the lawsuits border on vexatious." So, calling them one of his "favorites" would not be accurate.
I'm sure Hart is your hero. He ran Copyhype while he was still in law school, and obviously attracted the attention of the "Big Content" copyright holders. Because, soon after passing the Pennsylvania bar exam, he became Director of Legal Policy for the Copyright Alliance. All without ever stepping foot in a courtroom, or even (so far as I know) without ever having worked for any law firm.
So, keep it up, and soon the MPAA and RIAA will be signing your checks, too!
On the post: Once Again Top Downloaders Are Top Spenders, According To UK Gov't Study
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: re-read the report
Actually, I saw that it was a bad analogy as soon as I made it.
The people who drive cars are a small part of those humans who need to quickly get from Point A to Point B.
They are a large part of the market for those who buy gasoline. But the people who drive cars are a small portion of the people who 1. Drive cars, 2. Ride the subway, 3. Bike, 4. Walk.
What you're saying - exactly - is: if you don't like the price of gas, don't drive. But that only means that more people will bike, take the subway, or walk.
And all of those people will result in exactly the same losses to the driving industry, as if they'd simply acquired gasoline for free. Moreover, they will get used to doing without gasoline.
If you're living in a world where nobody drives anymore, what would you do?
On the post: Once Again Top Downloaders Are Top Spenders, According To UK Gov't Study
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: re-read the report
They may be a small part of the people in the market, but they are the majority of the people who spend money in the market.
An analogy: the people who drive cars are a small part of humans in general, but they are a large part of the market for people who buy gasoline.
On the post: Center For Copyright Information Loses Company Status, Not Supposed To Conduct Business In The US
Yup.
On the post: Once Again Top Downloaders Are Top Spenders, According To UK Gov't Study
Re: The Great Catch-22
Exactly right.
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