That sounds almost like an argument for an "active use" requirement on patents, which would prevent patent trolls from simply patenting everything in sight, then waiting to sue when others trespass.
Cars are cars. Houses are houses. Entertainment is entertainment. The terms of sale do not translate from one form of property over to another easily
They are not the same, in the same way that copyright infringement is not theft because the original creator/owner is not deprived of anything other that artificially created rent. If I steal your shovel, you've lost a shovel. But if I make a copy of your shovel, you haven't lost anything.
Yet, somehow, I get the feeling that people will continue to toss out moral arguments. They can't resist... and since they tend not to have the empirical data to support their position, it always gets reduced to irrelevant moral arguments.
Blame it on human nature. A tentative privilege for utilitarian purposes in the first generation becomes perceived as an entitlement by the second generation who grew up with it, and a right by the third generation.
Not to mention that people are really good with rationalizing their self-perceived self-interest with moral arguments. It's who we are.
Unfortunately, we're basically stuck waiting for the recording business (of both music and videos) to die, and for one or more of the streaming services to get powerful enough to get their own stakes in music and video production to turn it towards their advantage.
It is happening (the CD business has more or less shrunk to hold-outs plus people on the older side of the generation gap), but it's happening slowly. Which is just what most of the media business companies want, since they know that they can't stop it altogether - they want to slow things down enough so that they can try and set-up a new model similar to the old one, where they can make the money they're used to.
Who wants to bet that the US and some other countries were heavily pressuring the Danish government on this?
In any case, music is the area of the whole media production business (which includes music, film, radio, etc) that arguably deserves the least copyright protection. There are plenty of ways for musicians to survive and make money outside of royalties, and there are some long traditions in music of doing things such as covers of older songs.
At least film has the excuse of being very costly in terms of production expenses. Music doesn't really have that excuse, not anymore.
For that matter, I don't see why copyrights should get such long protection - in fact, they arguably deserve less than patents. Enforcing patent and copyright law has real costs, and you'd be hard-pressed to prove that spending money on enforcing such long copyrights has a really beneficial impact on society.
Now it is beginning to seem like nothing more than an attempt to prop up the same legacy model that has been holding them back this entire time.
That's almost certainly what it is, particularly since they're likely figuring that online viewer numbers will drop with the meter. They can charge higher prices for advertisements in print, so they're trying to inflate their print numbers even if most of the new print subscribers throw the paper into the recycling bin upon delivery.
Techdirt has not posted any stories submitted by Brett.
(untitled comment)
Re: Re: Re:
They are not the same, in the same way that copyright infringement is not theft because the original creator/owner is not deprived of anything other that artificially created rent. If I steal your shovel, you've lost a shovel. But if I make a copy of your shovel, you haven't lost anything.
(untitled comment)
Blame it on human nature. A tentative privilege for utilitarian purposes in the first generation becomes perceived as an entitlement by the second generation who grew up with it, and a right by the third generation.
Not to mention that people are really good with rationalizing their self-perceived self-interest with moral arguments. It's who we are.
(untitled comment)
It is happening (the CD business has more or less shrunk to hold-outs plus people on the older side of the generation gap), but it's happening slowly. Which is just what most of the media business companies want, since they know that they can't stop it altogether - they want to slow things down enough so that they can try and set-up a new model similar to the old one, where they can make the money they're used to.
(untitled comment)
In any case, music is the area of the whole media production business (which includes music, film, radio, etc) that arguably deserves the least copyright protection. There are plenty of ways for musicians to survive and make money outside of royalties, and there are some long traditions in music of doing things such as covers of older songs.
At least film has the excuse of being very costly in terms of production expenses. Music doesn't really have that excuse, not anymore.
For that matter, I don't see why copyrights should get such long protection - in fact, they arguably deserve less than patents. Enforcing patent and copyright law has real costs, and you'd be hard-pressed to prove that spending money on enforcing such long copyrights has a really beneficial impact on society.
(untitled comment)
That's almost certainly what it is, particularly since they're likely figuring that online viewer numbers will drop with the meter. They can charge higher prices for advertisements in print, so they're trying to inflate their print numbers even if most of the new print subscribers throw the paper into the recycling bin upon delivery.
Techdirt has not posted any stories submitted by Brett.
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