What we really need is for someone to print up a book containing (say) the source code and a bunch of discussion of the issues of the case, and selling it. This needs to happen soon. Then, get a copy of the book entered into evidence, so that the RIAA either has to
a. Ignore the book
b. Ask the judge to effectively ban the book
Either way, it ought to be fun.
Also, when the PGP source was released as a book, the font used was optimized for scanner accuracy. Perhaps someone at PGP still has the font files?
>You are depriving someone of royalties when you >download their music without paying the >appropriate fees.. whether or not you choose to >admit it
Actually, it's not clear this is true. If you planned to buy the music, but decided not to buy it once you found it for free on the net, then the artist, music label, etc., have lost money. If you wouldn't have bought it anyway, then they've not lost a dime. They've had someone play the music without paying them, but they haven't lost any *money*. They're surely not being harmed by someone they'll never meet listening to their music without permission. (On the other hand, if downloading the music spurs you to buy a couple of their albums, then the downloading service makes them money.)
It's not at all clear to me that a musician has some kind of inherent moral right to demand payment from anyone who ever hears his music. Or for that matter, that a programmer or writer or painter or anyone else has such a right. (If I have a party, and play CDs that I own to entertain my guests, should the musicians who made that CD be allowed to send each of my guests a bill? Or to send me a bill for each person who listened to the music?)
It may be that you don't convince someone to make more music by making them a millionare than by paying them a decent living to keep making music. But you almost certainly get more music from them paying them *something* than if they have to wait tables to feed themselves, and go into debt to make music.
This is a pretty well-understood problem in economics; music (and other copyrightable stuff) is becoming a public good. That means that it costs money to produce it, it benefits a lot of people, but it's not really possible to make any money producing it. Traditionally, public goods either get massively underproduced (relative to what people would be willing to pay for), or get financed by the government (good luck finding anything to listen to, with First Lady Tipper running the National Endowment for Wholesome Music), or get financed by charities of some kind (like the libraries and art museums financed by various rich people, dead and alive).
Either creators of music, art, writing, movies, etc., will find a way to get paid for it, or they'll end up creating less of it. (Though it may be that the current system of paying creators is bad enough, at least in some fields, that we won't notice the loss all that much.)
Several people have tried this, and there are a bunch of proposals for so-called micropayments. But there are a couple problems:
a. Most PCs have such lousy security that putting control over (say) $200 in e-cash on your computer is like leaving $200 on your front porch, just in case you need it to pay the pizza delivery guy. The security on any $0.05 purchase doesn't have to be all that great, but if I can forge a few thousand such purchases from you, I can make some real money.
b. Payment systems have to be adopted widely to be useful. (That is, you have to be able to spend the e-money you've got on your machine.) It's hard to get this to happen, both because credit cards are good enough for most things, and because setting yourself up an account is usually more hassle than just downloading an application, especially if you want to be able to accept payments.
The issue isn't whether it remains illegal to violate copyright, but whether there's a practical way to keep people from violating copyright. If there's not, then it will become very hard for anyone to make a living enforcing copyrights. This is a large part of what (for example) record companies have to do. It's possible to sell CDs for $15 only because they use the law to go after anyone making unauthorized copies of that CD and selling it for $5.
This may mean that it will become very hard for anyone to make a living writing books or music, but I hope not. It almost certainly means that there will be a big reshuffling of how money is distributed between publishing/record companies, authors/musicians, shippers, local book/record stores, etc.
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What we really need is for someone to print up a book containing (say) the source code and a bunch of discussion of the issues of the case, and selling it. This needs to happen soon. Then, get a copy of the book entered into evidence, so that the RIAA either has to
a. Ignore the book
b. Ask the judge to effectively ban the book
Either way, it ought to be fun.
Also, when the PGP source was released as a book, the font used was optimized for scanner accuracy. Perhaps someone at PGP still has the font files?
>You are depriving someone of royalties when you
>download their music without paying the
>appropriate fees.. whether or not you choose to
>admit it
Actually, it's not clear this is true. If you planned to buy the music, but decided not to buy it once you found it for free on the net, then the artist, music label, etc., have lost money. If you wouldn't have bought it anyway, then they've not lost a dime. They've had someone play the music without paying them, but they haven't lost any *money*. They're surely not being harmed by someone they'll never meet listening to their music without permission. (On
the other hand, if downloading the music spurs you to buy a couple of their albums, then the downloading service makes them money.)
It's not at all clear to me that a musician has some kind of inherent moral right to demand payment from anyone who ever hears his music. Or for that matter, that a programmer or writer or painter or anyone else has such a right. (If I have a party, and play CDs that I own to entertain my guests, should the musicians who made that CD be allowed to send each of my guests a bill? Or to send me a bill for each person who listened to the music?)
It may be that you don't convince someone to make more music by making them a millionare than by paying them a decent living to keep making music. But you almost certainly get more music from them paying them *something* than if they have to wait tables to feed themselves, and go into debt to make music.
This is a pretty well-understood problem in economics; music (and other copyrightable stuff) is becoming a public good. That means that it costs money to produce it, it benefits a lot of people, but it's not really possible to make any money producing it. Traditionally, public goods either get massively underproduced (relative to what people would be willing to pay for), or get financed by the government (good luck finding anything to listen to, with First Lady Tipper running the National Endowment for Wholesome Music), or get financed by charities of some kind (like the libraries and art museums financed by various rich people, dead and alive).
Either creators of music, art, writing, movies, etc., will find a way to get paid for it, or they'll end up creating less of it. (Though it may be that the current system of paying creators is bad enough, at least in some fields, that we won't notice the loss all that much.)
Several people have tried this, and there are a bunch of proposals for so-called micropayments. But there are a couple problems:
a. Most PCs have such lousy security that putting control over (say) $200 in e-cash on your computer is like leaving $200 on your front porch, just in case you need it to pay the pizza delivery guy. The security on any $0.05 purchase doesn't have to be all that great, but if I can forge a few thousand such purchases from you, I can make some real money.
b. Payment systems have to be adopted widely to be useful. (That is, you have to be able to spend the e-money you've got on your machine.) It's hard to get this to happen, both because credit cards are good enough for most things, and because setting yourself up an account is usually more hassle than just downloading an application, especially if you want to be able to accept payments.
The issue isn't whether it remains illegal to violate copyright, but whether there's a practical way to keep people from violating copyright. If there's not, then it will become very hard for anyone to make a living enforcing copyrights. This is a large part of what (for example) record companies have to do. It's possible to sell CDs for $15 only because they use the law to go after anyone making unauthorized copies of that CD and selling it for $5.
This may mean that it will become very hard for anyone to make a living writing books or music, but I hope not. It almost certainly means that there will be a big reshuffling of how money is distributed between publishing/record companies, authors/musicians, shippers, local book/record stores, etc.