Okay, good. So those of you who were once highly valued as wood-workers, metal-workers, machinists, etc. saw your worth get flushed once your techniques became automated to ultra-high volume? So what happened to all of you?
Apples and oranges. I can automate metal cutting or stonecutting. If you can tell me how to automate the creation of a new song or piece of art or novel (and that doesn't create one that sucks), then that would be a fair comparison.
A skilled stoneworker or woodworker or metalworker is still needed to make the templates for the automation process. A musician is needed to create the song that is to be burned to CD.
Of course, this comes back to the same old problem. Let's say I go home tonite, dump all my CDs and all my videogames and scan all my books and dump them all on some ftp server. Assume you get maybe a quarter of the US population to do it (I'm being really optimistic here). Suddenly, the work of hundreds of thousands, even millions of people becomes worth less than the paper it was printed on (or CDs it was pressed on, whatever). What happens when IP becomes worthless because it cannot be protected? It would probably continue to lumber on for a year or two while the lawsuits went on and on; then the record companies, etc. would drop dead. And what then? Well, all those writers and musicians and game coders that you love so much? Time for day jobs. Oh, but wait. They've honed their skills for years, even decades in a particular direction. That means they can either a) do what they love doing for free and hope that someone will pay them to do it or b) become unskilled labor or c) train themselves up on something that doesn't require as much creativity or skill, such as business and leave their art for when they get a chance to use it.
Of course, there's another possibility: becoming the court artisan. If you think things are bad right now, when the artists have some type of handle on getting things past their companies that may be objectionable because they can convince them that consumers will buy it, imagine what it'll be like when there's one consumer per artist, and the artist is terrified of pissing off his meal ticket.
Don't get me wrong, I love the idea of free software, and even free music and free art. The problem is that, while it will be free to the consumer, what about the artist? Beyond that, while I think that there can be a system, a style of government that can be setup where free IP is beneficial to everyone involved, forcing the outright collapse of the current system without having a good plan is not the way to do it. I think the most likely outcome of governments collapsing under unenforceable IP laws will be a feudal system with the corporate types STILL in charge, but even moreso.
So, does being the big, badass, unthinking rebel still sound as appealing to you? Maybe it does, especially if you don't actually contribute any IP, just use it.
Let's not attack other folks religions, 'K? Especially when you're grasp of the relevant history is not so firm.
Fair enough. However, I was not attacking the religion, so much as making a broad comparison of one group's actions to another.
One, the introduction of movable type may have made it easier for the Reformation to spread, it did not cause it.
Agreed. However, without the use of the printing press, how far do you think it would have likely spread? Far enough and fast enough for the Reformation to have spread before being crushed?
All of the arguments that you brought up are good solid ones, often the same ones used by the Church at the time to explain/excuse their actions. However, an argument is not (necessarily) a reason. I am sure that all the arguments that you listed above were, in fact, arguments that the church used and that they fervently believed in, at least the local clergy. However, and I must state that I cannot prove this, but look at other power structures and draw your own conclusions: As one moved higher in the Church around the time of the Reformation, the reasons became less and less about piety and more and more about power. If the Church could not control people's souls, it could not control their lives, and it could not control their money. The upper echelons of the Church at that time were, in general, far more interested in fleecing their flocks than tending to their needs.
Just scanning books from the library without checking to see if it is out of print may be theft. I'm sure the boys down at the jail will really be impressed by what a hardcore you are. The only burning you'll feel is when you sit.
Excuse me, but at what point did I recommend scanning copyrighted books? While I perhaps should have been more clear, I was referring to books that are no longer copyrighted. What I had meant, and it seems that you deliberately avoided this by attempting to insinuate criminal activity, was that there are several projects, most notably the Gutenberg Project, that are trying to do what the LoC refuses to. If you find the LoC's attitude abhorrent, which I do, go and donate your time to those.
And, on a more personal note, thank you so much for undermining your argument with a useless bit of nastiness at the end of it. I feel I should extend the same courtesy to you.
This is no different than the Catholic church trying their hardest to keep people first from printing bibles, and then from translating the bible to English. There is nothing sadder than an institution realizing that they are outdated by new ideas and the public's better understanding of old ones. Thankfully, the LoC doesn't have the ability to burn heretics at the stake. So, who else wants to check out some books and fire up the old scanner? I gotcher Reformation right here.
Well, yeah, most of it was godawful. But if you watched for the humor, it was decent, and the firefights were pretty good. I think Heinlein would have choked Verhoeven if he saw the costume design, tho. I was just waiting for Doogie to say, "Papers? Do you haff papers?"
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Apples and oranges. I can automate metal cutting or stonecutting. If you can tell me how to automate the creation of a new song or piece of art or novel (and that doesn't create one that sucks), then that would be a fair comparison.
A skilled stoneworker or woodworker or metalworker is still needed to make the templates for the automation process. A musician is needed to create the song that is to be burned to CD.
Of course, this comes back to the same old problem. Let's say I go home tonite, dump all my CDs and all my videogames and scan all my books and dump them all on some ftp server. Assume you get maybe a quarter of the US population to do it (I'm being really optimistic here). Suddenly, the work of hundreds of thousands, even millions of people becomes worth less than the paper it was printed on (or CDs it was pressed on, whatever). What happens when IP becomes worthless because it cannot be protected? It would probably continue to lumber on for a year or two while the lawsuits went on and on; then the record companies, etc. would drop dead. And what then? Well, all those writers and musicians and game coders that you love so much? Time for day jobs. Oh, but wait. They've honed their skills for years, even decades in a particular direction. That means they can either a) do what they love doing for free and hope that someone will pay them to do it or b) become unskilled labor or c) train themselves up on something that doesn't require as much creativity or skill, such as business and leave their art for when they get a chance to use it.
Of course, there's another possibility: becoming the court artisan. If you think things are bad right now, when the artists have some type of handle on getting things past their companies that may be objectionable because they can convince them that consumers will buy it, imagine what it'll be like when there's one consumer per artist, and the artist is terrified of pissing off his meal ticket.
Don't get me wrong, I love the idea of free software, and even free music and free art. The problem is that, while it will be free to the consumer, what about the artist? Beyond that, while I think that there can be a system, a style of government that can be setup where free IP is beneficial to everyone involved, forcing the outright collapse of the current system without having a good plan is not the way to do it. I think the most likely outcome of governments collapsing under unenforceable IP laws will be a feudal system with the corporate types STILL in charge, but even moreso.
So, does being the big, badass, unthinking rebel still sound as appealing to you? Maybe it does, especially if you don't actually contribute any IP, just use it.
Mmmph. A GPS. A cell phone. WinCE. A JEDI needs not these things.
Fair enough. However, I was not attacking the religion, so much as making a broad comparison of one group's actions to another.
One, the introduction of movable type may have made it easier for the Reformation to spread, it did not cause it.Agreed. However, without the use of the printing press, how far do you think it would have likely spread? Far enough and fast enough for the Reformation to have spread before being crushed?
All of the arguments that you brought up are good solid ones, often the same ones used by the Church at the time to explain/excuse their actions. However, an argument is not (necessarily) a reason. I am sure that all the arguments that you listed above were, in fact, arguments that the church used and that they fervently believed in, at least the local clergy. However, and I must state that I cannot prove this, but look at other power structures and draw your own conclusions: As one moved higher in the Church around the time of the Reformation, the reasons became less and less about piety and more and more about power. If the Church could not control people's souls, it could not control their lives, and it could not control their money. The upper echelons of the Church at that time were, in general, far more interested in fleecing their flocks than tending to their needs.
Just scanning books from the library without checking to see if it is out of print may be theft. I'm sure the boys down at the jail will really be impressed by what a hardcore you are. The only burning you'll feel is when you sit.Excuse me, but at what point did I recommend scanning copyrighted books? While I perhaps should have been more clear, I was referring to books that are no longer copyrighted. What I had meant, and it seems that you deliberately avoided this by attempting to insinuate criminal activity, was that there are several projects, most notably the Gutenberg Project, that are trying to do what the LoC refuses to. If you find the LoC's attitude abhorrent, which I do, go and donate your time to those.
And, on a more personal note, thank you so much for undermining your argument with a useless bit of nastiness at the end of it. I feel I should extend the same courtesy to you.
This is no different than the Catholic church trying their hardest to keep people first from printing bibles, and then from translating the bible to English. There is nothing sadder than an institution realizing that they are outdated by new ideas and the public's better understanding of old ones. Thankfully, the LoC doesn't have the ability to burn heretics at the stake. So, who else wants to check out some books and fire up the old scanner? I gotcher Reformation right here.
Well, yeah, most of it was godawful. But if you watched for the humor, it was decent, and the firefights were pretty good. I think Heinlein would have choked Verhoeven if he saw the costume design, tho. I was just waiting for Doogie to say, "Papers? Do you haff papers?"