Everyone wants something for nothing. Gambling exists because of it. Napster, Gnutella, etc... will continue to thrive because of it. Royalties are something-for-nothing.
I'm no economist but legalized monopolies on public information (books,music,movies) *feels* economically flawed. Once information is created (book written, music recorded, movie filmed) and made available to the public to experience, it's gone, man.
The cost of making each copy approaches zero almost instantaneously. Yet we have "copyright" to artificially inflate the price of experiencing the information. (Note: I say "experience" because nothing is "consumed".)
The economic justification for copyright (and patent) is that people won't think up cool stuff if they don't think they can profit from it. I think this is true for some people, but the most brilliant people would do it anyway. "Patent clerk yields theory of relativity" - ya know? Sure, maybe some raving genius won't have a chance to invent cold-fusion because s/he was out toiling in the field. Oh well.
I can easily imagine a world minus the genius of Metallica. But I'm sure there are plenty of wankers out there who love creating music for music's sake and would continue to do so even if they never thought they could make a living at it. This is especially true for those I consider "artists". Art happens without copyright. And with the internet, there's also a large audience for it.
Tossing out copyright runs against the way things are set up now. So there's turmoil as the lawyers do their thing. Maybe the few people living off of royalties will have to get day jobs. And the corporations that peddle their wares (and are the primary recipients of your media dollar) will need to fold up shop. So what?
I think what makes many of us giddy is that we can already see the death of enforceable copyright as inevitable. You don't have to be an anarchist. It doesn't matter whether you think it's right or wrong. It's going to happen.
No individual or corporation can assign a value to any THING unless they have a monopoly. Once the monopoly is broken, the market environment in which the THING exists decides what something's worth. Right now, for digital information, the market is saying "It's worth the time to download it." And maybe that's all it's really worth.
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The GPL is as enforceable as copyright. I fully expect people to use open source for profit without paying anyone.
My conclusion is not that copyright is good or bad, simply that it will become unenforceable and thus irrelevant.
Everyone wants something for nothing. Gambling exists because of it. Napster, Gnutella, etc... will continue to thrive because of it. Royalties are something-for-nothing.
I'm no economist but legalized monopolies on public information (books,music,movies) *feels* economically flawed. Once information is created (book written, music recorded, movie filmed) and made available to the public to experience, it's gone, man.
The cost of making each copy approaches zero almost instantaneously. Yet we have "copyright" to artificially inflate the price of experiencing the information. (Note: I say "experience" because nothing is "consumed".)
The economic justification for copyright (and patent) is that people won't think up cool stuff if they don't think they can profit from it. I think this is true for some people, but the most brilliant people would do it anyway. "Patent clerk yields theory of relativity" - ya know? Sure, maybe some raving genius won't have a chance to invent cold-fusion because s/he was out toiling in the field. Oh well.
I can easily imagine a world minus the genius of Metallica. But I'm sure there are plenty of wankers out there who love creating music for music's sake and would continue to do so even if they never thought they could make a living at it. This is especially true for those I consider "artists". Art happens without copyright. And with the internet, there's also a large audience for it.
Tossing out copyright runs against the way things are set up now. So there's turmoil as the lawyers do their thing. Maybe the few people living off of royalties will have to get day jobs. And the corporations that peddle their wares (and are the primary recipients of your media dollar) will need to fold up shop. So what?
I think what makes many of us giddy is that we can already see the death of enforceable copyright as inevitable. You don't have to be an anarchist. It doesn't matter whether you think it's right or wrong. It's going to happen.
No individual or corporation can assign a value to any THING unless they have a monopoly. Once the monopoly is broken, the market environment in which the THING exists decides what something's worth. Right now, for digital information, the market is saying "It's worth the time to download it." And maybe that's all it's really worth.