Slashdot Mirror
The Crime of Sharing
John Perry Barlow has an editorial piece on recent developments in law and file-sharing networks. Most slashdot readers have read this sort of thing before, but sometimes it's nice to see how different people approach the same sort of persuasive argument, to bolster your own persuasive ability.
... that, in my opinion, loads of people who downloaded Morpheus or Kazaa don't do it to be able to share music, but just to get stuff without paying for it. When they see their favourite freeloading tool under attack, they're screaming blue murder.
Don't get me wrong, I'd hate to see p2p go, and I'm ready to do something for it (EFF, here I come...). I just don't expect millions of other users to do so. Sad, innit?
I gave up sigs almost a year ago.
You talk about "stealing" and "theft", when in fact you seem to mean copyright infringement. Please don't confuse these, they're totally unrelated. (I'm not saying that copyright infringement is okay, but it's not theft!)
Serious question though: How is "theft" defined in U.S. law? Im my country, it only applies if you take something away (sorry, link to German site), which is different from copying something.
~shiny
WILL HACK FOR $$$
Why isn't the public making a fuss? Why, at a time when the most basic principal of society-the right to know-is being turned into a criminal act, isn't there an army of outrage fighting to protect the free flow of human creativity?
A public outcry is useless if there is no one to hear it.
It has been demonstrated over and over again, especially in the last 5 years, that Congress and the courts hold the "rights" of corporations to continue doing business in higher regard than the Rights of the people. They do not care about us; and in fact, if we attempt to exercise our Rights in any visible way, we are arrested. Ask Jon Johansen. Ask Dmitry Sklyarov.
The battleground has changed. We can no longer fight our battles in the open, using the due process of Law, because the Law has been corrupted by money. So we fight in the darkness. Our file transfers are private and secret, just like their back-room deals, their bribes (they call it "lobbying"), and their good-ol'-boy networking.
Morpheus is one of the most popular downloads in the history of cyberspace. Users have retrieved more than 40 million copies since July.
If that isn't "the public making a fuss", then what is it?
The same arguments get rehashed here over and over. I don't believe anything you said in the beginning and am not smart enough to argue the later part, and i am fairly certain you won't change your mind with anything i said, but still
"However, if that person who downloads music for free would have bought the CD had it not been available for download, then yes, the artist has lost something."
This is most certainly not true. Many have pointed a fact out here, though i can't find any today. This is that the artist will get more funds directly from a person if that person knows their songs and from knowing their songs wants to here them performed live, goes to the show, likes the music, buys the t-shirt, gets the 7" (not of industry cock), gets on the mailing list. The artist is more likely to see this cash direct, as opposed to shelling out $22 at the HMV (that is how much a random cd i picked up out of the racks at the HMV RnR Hall of Fall cost) and the artist getting their $1-$3.
"in fact, you're contributing to the devaluation of the artists' career by refusing to pay for the music at all."
No. In fact I am contributing to the devaluation of the segrams, vivendi, emi, whoever the hell stranglehold on music distribution , production and selection. Music is going to be there. It is not as if once the majors topple things are going to dry up and no one will put out records and no money will be made. All it will mean is that corporate radioband will not make millions off of haircuts, cliches and marketing.
Other points, duly taken.
In a balanced economic environment the producer DOES NOT and CANNOT determine price by fiat if they have any expectation of selling their product. Price is set by negotiation with the purchaser (more or less). The current music system is run by a monopolistic group of companies that are actively seeking to choke supply to extort money out of customers. The counterpoint that we can choose to not buy their music is empty because we cannot participate in modern society without buying from monopolists (MS, Time-Warner, etc).
Quite frankly, I don't being extorted. I feel badly that some artists will lose money on their music*, but I do have issues with paying ridiculous sums of money for a product that has a negligible production cost.
* I do feel bad that artists don't get paid for their music, but I also have no problem paying for a live performance either. And, perhaps we shouldn't be looking for revenue from broadcasting/distribution per se where its unreasonable to collect fees (think about the use of unenforceable laws in general).
However, if that person who downloads music for free would have bought the CD had it not been available for download, then yes, the artist has lost something.
WRONG! Market share isn't a moral right. Maybe Ford has no incentive to make cars unless they can lock out the Japs. Maybe letting in the Japs deprives Ford of sales. Welcome to the real world
WRONG again. Mozart was paid for that too, but somehow that didn't mean a eternal monopoly on downstream copying. This is not about compensation for what anyone did, but a percieved right to controll peoples copying behavior after the cat's already out of the bag. Sorry, but you don't have that right even if you think you do.
If you believe that you should be able to enjoy someone else's work without justly compensating them for it, then you are a thief.
DEAD WRONG. I enjoyed looking at those two gilrs in scant cloths on the beach the other day. Sorry, I did not force them to reveal themselves, they chose to do so by their own free will. I owe them nothing. Maybe someone told them they were entitled to compensation for my pleasure. Sorry they're not. Maybe someone told them it was their right, sorry it is not. Dam, maybe I would even like to, but it is not a right. It just goes to show how such derivations of just value are delusional if not socially psychotic.