Posted on 04/02/2005 4:37:22 AM PST by billorites
As the berobed Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court sat pestering the suits who came before them days ago to contest Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer v. Grokster...
Conundrum #1: Has the Internet, the most powerful information pump the world has ever known, drowned the incentive to create in words or images?
Conundrum #2: Has the Internet effectively displaced the antique notion of the profit-motive with a newer, unstoppable reality that everything on the Internet is, if it wants to be, "free"?
Conundrum #3: How is it that millions of Americans who wouldn't cross the street against a red light will sleep like lambs after downloading onto their computers a Library of Alexandria's worth of music or movies--for free.
Even writers gotta eat. But this means one has to buy into the validity of eeeek, "profit." Absent that, there's no hope.
New business models like iTunes and techno-fixes such as micropayments matter a lot, but the unshakable reality is that digits and microchips are not like any previous reproducing technology. If you can digitize it, you can grab it, for free.
No matter what the Supreme Court decides about Grokster's 15 minutes of fame, this is a philosophical issue for the long run. The Web isn't just a technology; it's become an ideology. The Web's birth as a "free" medium and the downloading ethic have engendered the belief that culture--songs, movies, fiction, journalism, photography--should be clickable into the public domain, for "everyone."
What a weird ethic. Some who will spend hundreds of dollars for iPods and home theater systems won't pay one thin dime for a song or movie. So Steve Jobs and the Silicon Valley geeks get richer while the new-music artists sweating through three sets in dim clubs get to live on Red Bull. Where's the justice in that?
(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...
A corollary:
Since the price of publishing has gone down to nil, it has encouraged millions to write (q.v. the blogosphere, chat forums, etc.)
Another unintended consequence is that what gets published is no longer perceived as valuable (too much supply).
You have seen into the minds of songwriters everywhere? Quite a gift, that.
Extending copyrights benefits the shareholders of Disney, not the creative process.
Baloney. The prospect of holding the rights to your creation is THE incentive for creation.
Copywrites used to be for a shorter period of time, in line with profiting for a product, not for shareholders to milk an artist’s work
Boy, the anti-capitalists really come out of the woodwork on this issue.
My speed limit analogy I think works well here. The vast majority of Americans think anyone who goes through a school zone at 95 ought to be behind bars. Yet they will routinely drive 70 on a 60 mph road when it's clear that the speed limit has been set too low.
No one argues that people who do the latter are in favor of highway carnage.
Baloney. Listen to the Chuck Berry riffs that introduce half of the Beach Boys catalogs. Listen to the Beatles "nicking" of the Everly Brothers. There are countless examples of musicians given broad latitude to take huge bites off of existing ideas. The facts don't support you.
Twenty five - thirty years - sure, that's a reasonable time to have an exclusive right to anything, but beyond that, it is counter productive.
How? Why should "Hotel California" no longer belong to its authors? How is that harming anyone? And by what right should they have a claim on it?
And even if you don't have the exclusive right to it, there's nothing to prevent someone from continuing to publish and distribute the work and continue to make money at it.
Distribution has nothing to do with the rights of the creator.
Huck, I'd be interested in hearing your response to my #16.
And anytime the cops try to really enforce the traffic laws, thru cameras or lasers or whatever, ppl have a fit. They tolerate the laws because they are allowed to break them. Same situation here. Copyright laws are fine as long as no one enforces them, or so long as the herd is fairly safe in their numbers from harm.
Re: #16, a law addressing lost or untraceable copyrights might tackle that issue for you. But it should be up to the owner whether or not it's released or not, etc.
In this case, the public wants free music. Not a lot of profitability in that.
The Constitution merely says for a "limited" time. That's pretty broad toleration.
I download, and upload, copious amounts of music. Gigs and gigs. Free.
Now that I've said that, and to head off what may be an immediate negative reaction for some, let me add one other word - legally.
Because the music I transmit through cyberspace, and grab from there, as well, is made by artists who explicitly allow non-commercial taping and trading of their live material. And there are many, many who do.
What is the business effect of this? Those artists whose music I download and upload reap a huge benefit - because the sharing of their live music is as effective a promotional tool as could possibly exist, at least for those artists with a facility for performing live.
For those artists whose music I trade, I purchase literally all - all - of their recorded commercial output. When they come to my town, I buy a ticket and see them play. I encourage others to do the same. Through the trading of live music, I become more familiar with the artists' talents, their body of work, the breadth of their musical palette, their influences, etc. And I obtain that knowledge in the most directly affecting way possible - not watching interviews or reading magazine articles, but listening to music - listening to their art. In the moment in which it is created. Warts and all.
As I said, I download and upload, gigs and gigs. I also own more than 1000 commercially released records. I see probably 20 live shows a year - more before I had a youngun at home. I support those musicians whose music brings me such pleasure. And I know many like me. We are the people who put food on the table for those artists who don't sell a million records.
Something to think about, for a musician.
Since the internet has come into use I haven't heard any music that I would be willing to pay for. That was not a comment about getting music for free, just a comment about the quality of today's music.
I think you smoked your breakfast if you read anything into what I’ve written that implies that I’m upset with anyone’s “success”. You’ve “morphed” into just another whiner.
"What's sympathy got to do with it,"
Ask Disney who got the copyright protections extended.
"Are you saying there ought to be a ceiling on opportunity?... Should I then have less rights to the fruits of my labor? "
I’m saying that in the information age “giveth and taketh away”. It simplified creation and distribution, but made strict enforcement of copywrite cost prohibitive.
"No, they're just actively violating them to feed their own immature appetites. "
Write something worth buying.
"Translation: we are ok with the current laws, as long as we can freely break them and no one tries to hold us accountable for our larceny. "
Tell that to the people up on charges.
"Marx has spoken."
waaaaaaaaa…
Common sense.
"Baloney. The prospect of holding the rights to your creation is THE incentive for creation"
Baloney. No one should own a song for ever. It’s unconstitutional.
"Boy, the anti-capitalists really come out of the woodwork on this issue. "
No, just the whiners
What is needed is files that can protect themselves from unauthorized viewing. Ok how would you do that? Well I have an idea and I am going to make a bundle!
Generally, nothing.
I have no issue with people PAYING for the music they download. I just take issue with them STEALING it. Those who use grokster or kazaa to download "shared" files are thieves, regardless of the profits made by storage media companies.
Should the Rolling Stones not be entitled to own Satisfaction now? Or Disney and Snow White? Should Faulkner's estate get nothing from The Sound and the Fury? Maybe we can extend this and take any houses more than 30 years old into the public domain.
Protecting intellectual property rights encourages creativity, in the same way that protecting real property rights encourages real estate development. Anyone who disagress is usually just making up an excuse to steal something.
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