... for CPUs, there are effectively ZERO variable costs to the producer once you've purchased the chip and it's in your hands.
Dedicated circuitry to create artificial scarcity and control actually adds unnecessary costs.
This might be useful in very specific scenarios where somebody, say, owns a supercomputer and rents it out, but even there, I'm sure there are far better solutions that don't involve the CPU hardware.
This is, like you suggest, just a BS wet dream of the manufacturers... make something once, get money forever.
Right now we probably have few enough major chip vendors that with a little bit of collusion, if they decided not to compete, they could probably pull something like this on us. This doesn't look likely right now, but it seems possible. Hopefully some other (possibly foreign) company would enter the market if that happened. Competition is healthy for a market.
Every generation seems to think this is 'as good as it gets' and every generation has been proven wrong... *sigh*, this nonsense again: This is a false induction fallacy - prior failed predictions have a grand total of ZERO 'predictive power' over whether or not future predictions will fail, because the entire circumstances are different each time in about a gazillion ways.
In case you missed the memo, libertarian isn't about trying to "optimise" the economy or about trying to "optimise" the use of resources, it's about freedom, or more specifically, the principle that liberty should not be expended for the sake of supposedly "optimising an economy".
If your absolute primary goal is artifically engineering the most "optimal" economy possible, then sure, curtailing individual liberties may in certain cases help that flawed goal.
As a result, as soon as a few helium sellers lower their prices, then the entire market would have to follow
Actually, that's the exact opposite of one of the primary principles of running a successful business, one of the first things you'll learn NOT to do in any kind of sensible business course, and one of the most common causes of business failure when newbs make this mistake.
Oh yes, and the 'kicker' for that Perry Bible Fellowship is that it's all available on the Internet for free. And the top-selling music album in the US last week was from Radiohead - an album that's been available *legally* to download for free for some time.
I agree, the idea of government surveillance of all digital transactions - in fact, that would amount to all online transactions at some point, and eventually most payments - is an absolute abomination, and IMO nothing would justify anything approaching that, ever (although it might be inevitable, I'll resist).
Personally I don't think there is even a major problem that needs solving here. Some copyright infringement - even a lot of it perhaps - is inevitable, I say just learn to live with that, I think there will always be enough people who are honest enough to pay for something that you should be able to make a living if your work is half-decent (and if it's not, you shouldn't make a living at it). Perhaps I underestimate the scope (and future scope) of the problem, I don't know, but I'm missing the part where some gigantic travesty is busy occurring that warrants major legal changes. Movie producers are still making a lot of money on decent movies. If you're even half-good at comics you can make a lot of money (look at the Perry Bible Fellowship example just the other day on slashdot, over $300,000 sales practically on day one of the book to a 20-something kid producing work that is hardly genius). And in music, good and even mediocre musicians can still make a killing, many people do buy music online when they can, unnecessary middlement are being cut out etc.. In some senses musicians today have it better than ever before at any time in human history --- with a potentially reachable market of billions even crappy musicians can now find their niche, while technology has made it easier and cheaper than ever to produce and record music of better quality than was thinkable even for the rich just a few decades ago, with more and more options, more instruments and digital sounds/mixing etc., while a comparatively booming global economy means a market with tonnes more disposable income to spend on music than ever before. There are more radio stations than ever, plus streaming Internet radio stations, more clubs to play in than ever before in history, and a huge and growing market for music in other media such as movies and games that didn't exist 100 years ago. As burgeoning economies and improving technology pushes more and more peoples spending higher up the Maslow pyramid, entertainment expenditure will only become bigger. Maybe I've got rose-colours specs on but forgive me for not seeing the need to rush and solve this huge 'problem'.
In that case all physical copies will approach the price of the paper they're printed on, and all digital copies will approach the price of the wires they're carried on.
Only if copyright doesn't exist (or isn't enforced), yes. So in that sense, it's a "distortion" over what would otherwise be provided by the brute *laws of nature*, and is certainly a more abstract government than say, laws against murder. Copyright is essentially artificial scarcity and distribution control, but I'm inclined to go with saying it's a good thing. After all, without it, I promise you I would not be creating that graphic novel. You might argue some people will create stuff for free and go hungry or beg for tips, but copyright law doesn't preclude people from choosing to do so already. At least it gives creators a choice.
You're mistaken that the raw "value" or cost of a copyrighted work (available in say digital form) is only the bits to transfer it over networks - you're looking only at marginal/variable costs and not fixed costs. The true cost amounts to the fixed cost of production, which amounts to the creator's food, electricity and other infrastructure bills. If I spend three months creating the graphic novel, add all my monthly bills to eat etc., multiply by three and you have the actual cost of production --- thereafter, assuming the marginal cost of distribution to be zero, the "value" of each copy should be that cost divided by the number of copies made. This is incalculable, of course, so one must at least choose to (factoring in some risk too) amortise that cost over some number of copies if one merely wants to break even, let alone make money. You can't do this without copyright law.
It's not copyright law in itself that *creates* monopolies and cartels like the RIAA, anymore than it is (say) paint that causes graffiti. Nobody ever physically stopped any major business from truly competing with the recording industry cartels, it was a free market all along.
Are you suggesting that third parties inherently get harmed in order to produce graphic novels? The only possible externalities I can think of are not inherent (e.g. perhaps the publisher chooses a printer that purchases paper from a company that gets its raw materials from a forestry company that, say, pollutes a river that people downstream fish or grow crops from)... unlike contract killings this would not be inherent to the market, it would be incidental both to the medium (e.g. I could choose to sell my graphic novel online instead) and to particular cases, where laws already exist, at least in principle, to protect people from having such external costs inflicted on them.
I don't think graphic novels represent a good example of a distorted market; it's fairly free in all respects, from producers to publishers, and the barrier to entry is low - almost anyone can produce a graphic novel these days. Music, yes, because of the recording industry cartels and their historic artificial control over major channels of distribution. This artificial control was possible due to technological constraints which are being eroded by advances in technology (in other words, technology is solving the problem all by itself, no government intervention required). Nonetheless from a pure free market perspective even the recording industry cartels do not represent a failure, since people have clearly always been willing to pay monopoly pricing even for lousy music which they do not need at all. Nobody was ever forced to buy an overpriced CD, people chose to do so voluntarily, so if people are willing to pay those prices, then surely that is the value to them - it's still mutually beneficial, and I still believe there are no true "losers" (i.e. the externalities you refer to), either in the music industry or the graphic novel industry (even if it was far from the ideal situation, people weren't "losing" anything).
I also don't think there is any reason why a really lousy graphic novel should cost the same as a really good one (since their marginal cost of reproduction would be about the same). Clearly the "value" (enjoyment or intellectual stimulation) derived by the user is not from the raw materials used in the production. The free market (i.e. laws of supply and demand) should allow the value of a graphic novel to be determined.
I think what you're getting at is that in the market for things like music and graphic novels, particularly with today's technology, is that the marginal cost of reproduction has approached almost zero - there is no longer natural scarcity, nor are distribution channels highly limited to physical controlled retail outlets. Hence all control and scarcity become artificial, and only copyright law - "artificial protection granted by society" - stands in the way of the cost of IP to the end-user approaching zero. Nonetheless I believe in that principle of artificial protection, to protect content creators (it always costs money i.e. time/food to create something), and on top of that the principle of freedom i.e. free markets should trump, i.e. creators set the conditions and price to the extent that technology allows. Government control is bad.
If I may further my argument: When you say "creators can control its distribution for their own profit", you are implying that the problem is that that profit comes at the 'expense' of others. But what does that mean exactly? If I choose not to buy some overpriced music from the recording industry cartels, I haven't lost anything I had before that music existed. I'm not poorer in any way at all. But what about those who part with their money for the overpriced CDs? They're not losing anything either, because all (voluntary) trade is mutually beneficial. If a CD purchaser (or a buyer of my overpriced graphic novel) was really going to be worse off making the purchase, they wouldn't do it. Hence, they have *benefited* from the purchase. There are no losers.
Tragedy of the commons doesn't apply here: If I work hard and create something that *never existed before* (say, I produce a cool new graphic novel), how does it *cost* you if you aren't able to see it because I priced it too high for you? Do you *lose* something that you had before? Do you wake up with less? No, at worst you end up in exactly the same position as before. You just might decide you *feel* more bitter, because yesterday you didn't know my work existed, today you know it exists and that you can't afford it - but you haven't lost anything at all (unless I stole your pens and paper to produce the thing).
Yeah, it wasn't intentional, I only afterwards noticed the earlier post higher up in the thread was you.
For me, arguing over whether it should be 0 or 20 or 120 years etc., just seems like arguing over different *degrees* of entitlement. It's that 'entitlement' that feels off to me; no matter what the duration, it still boils down to a law mandating that after some period, everybody (just for existing) becomes entitled to the fruits of my/your efforts. That doesn't feel right. If I worked while some kid sat on his butt, I should get to be as stingy as I want. I sort of have this mental image of someone walking up to an author and saying 'OK, 20 years has passed, gimme your work now' (OK, not 'gimme' though in the sense of taking some physical copy, but just the idea of it).
I'm not sure why we should ever necessarily be entitled to anything we haven't earned unless it's been granted; that kind of thinking leads to all sorts of other nasties (e.g. corruption)... I try to be appreciative of what I do have, not angry about what's "denied" me.
Finally, some sense: Yes, music is overpriced, but this is not because copyright is somehow bad or wrong, it's because the recording industry has formed a cartel (and until not too long ago were able to control most production and distribution artificially)... the free market and technology are currently solving this all by itself, interestingly enough. But anyway, the two (cartels vs copyright) are very separate issues: As an analogy, if a few people start painting graffiti around town, you don't solve the problem by getting rid of all paint. Copyright is not the problem with music pricing, cartels are.
So if I spend months toiling away writing a book, you would think it's "insane" to not be allowed to read it for free? I don't get that, sorry. Sorry if I just straw-man'd your argument, it's not clear to me how you are arguing things should work. Let me put it another way, if I spend months putting blood, sweat and tears into my book, why shouldn't I be allowed to charge you whatever I want for it if you want to read it? You're free not to buy/read it. But are you entitled to be able to read it under your own conditions? I'm not entitled to be able to listen to Britney's latest airheaded songs for free, I'm not entitled to play the latest computer games for free, etc. (again, you didn't say things should be free, I'm not sure what you're suggesting really)
As an author, I would of course be competing for your money not only with 3000 other new books a day that you could choose to read instead, and not only with all the free stuff to read on the Internet, but all the other ways you could choose to spend your time/money (e.g. comics/movies/games etc.), so market forces would dictate that I can't really charge "whatever I want"; on the contrary, content is currently exploding exponentially - e.g. just looking at books, there are literally more good books being published now than anyone can even feasibly read even if all they did was read all day.
(Just for the record I am all in favour of file sharing *networks* - a network is just a network, you can send legitimate files over it too.)
Apologies, "content producers are allowed to make copyright from their work" should have read "content producers should be allowed to make profit from their work". Artists should also remain free to choose whatever record companies they want (and they are), under whatever conditions they want and are willing to negotiate for the services of the record companies (which is technically a free market, even though there is a cartel, that is a separate issue to copyright).
I'd like to add that if copyright could be any specifiable length, authors that chose 1000 or more years would actually lead to their own works ending up 'locked up in vaults' (so to speak) years down the line because it would compete with comparatively more open content that would inevitably eventually flood the market (content is growing exponentially, content consumers have their pick). Most authors and content producers in general at least want to be remembered after their deaths and have their works read fairly widely someday - their work is their 'mark on society' - so there would be natural "competition" and pressure to choose more reasonable copyright duration.
What really offends in the music industry is the cartel and it's bullying behaviour - not copyright itself - people shouldn't confuse the two.
Actually I wasn't even thinking of music. What about books? (Over 3000 new books published a day!) Comics? Movies? Poetry? Software? (Open source - which actually relies on copyright law - excluded) Art? Photography? Openness remains an exception.
I don't really claim to have an answer, just saying that if almost everybody does "X" voluntarily, then "X" surely can't really be all that insane.
Even so, even if we look only at music, so record companies hold the copyright - again, they're just people/companies, if the current copyright period is so "insane" why DON'T they specify shorter copyright periods? Because of profit? So what, the content producers are allowed to make copyright from their work (in partnership with artists - and if artists go to them it's because they need/want them).
Personally, my own current opinion is that content producer should be able to specify the terms and duration of copyright --- it is, after all, their work; I'm not sure why anyone else inherently necessarily should somehow be entitled to make use of somebody else's hard work for free just for existing, unless the content producer agrees with that condition. This implies to me that, say, an author should even have the right to fully decide the copyright duration himself, be it 1 year or 1000 years - I mean, it's him that put the blood sweat and tears into creating the thing. A growing culture of entitlement is I believe a slippery slope to worse things in a society.
If it's really "insane", why aren't more content producers *voluntarily* reducing the copyright terms of their own works? I mean, a content producer might not be allowed to impose a longer copyright than the law specifies, but he/she sure is allowed to stipulate a shorter one (e.g. 'after 15 years this becomes public domain' or 'after my death this becomes public domain).
Pro-space exploration people [1] seem to be saying that space exploration has the status of a national or global "public good", whose benefits can't be captured by private organizations and therefore will be underfunded by the private sector compared to how much benefit can be so created.
No, I think you may have missed the point --- when people say space travel is "more important than economic considerations", I don't think they're claiming there is a "public good" at all, but rather, that we do it for reasons other than either it being a "public good" or being economically beneficial (i.e. *neither* of the two reasons you listed). Basically we do it because we are humans and we *like exploring*, simple as that.
I agree with you that this is an example of the broken window fallacy. I don't think anyone can definitively prove funding space travel benefits the economy more so than equivalently lower taxes would. BUT, we don't have to base every single decision we ever make on what's "overall best for the economy". Let me put it another way: Since we'd effectively be doing it because we'd 'like to do it', then from an economic perspective, it might best be classified as an entertainment expense (odd as that might sound).
People spend an awful amount of money on entertainment *anyway*, and while the libertarian in me screams at the idea of a government deciding to tax higher in order to fund space travel, I'd like to see more space travel (rather than spend that extra bit of money on e.g. a PS3 or hookers or whatever), and I doubt that private charities are going to ever effectively fill this role.
Seriously though, imagine if society spent as much time and money and devotion on space travel as we probably do just on creating, distributing and reading news about Britney Spears *alone*. And that's just one of the many none-too-amazing things we expend our productivity/wealth on... so I have no doubt society can afford it.
No no, don't you see, economic goals trump absolutely everything else
Unfortunately, too many people do think that way these days.
Kids today, know the price of everything, and the value of nothing... *grumble*. Like you say, let's do it because it's cool. It's not as if we're not spending most of our money on crap anyway, we've long since figured out how to take care of most of our basic needs.
For a machine to hose up like that just from a hot day, even a very hot day, it most likely means it wasn't well-ventilated enough (e.g. fan outlet too close to a wall or under a table etc.), or a fan wasn't working properly, and combined with that you'd probably have to be playing some serious 3D game or something for a prolonged period. You should leave quite a bit of space for the hot air to blow out and away from the computer.
It's not clear to me why all bloggers should be lumped together or treated as a "community". A blog is just a medium, like a blank piece of paper. If one painter behaves unprofessionally, nobody assumes it somehow reflects on the "entire community of painters as a whole". Likewise for cartoonists, or movie actors or directors, or radio DJs, or stand-up comedians, or writers, or "real" journalists for that matter. Treat professional individuals like professional individuals, and unprofessional ones like unprofessional ones, and scrap this silly obsession with regarding all bloggers like one single borg-like entity.
Here in South Africa, where electricity demand also currently outstrips supply for various stupid reasons, the government's police of "managing" the problem includes just such a thing: Broadcasting current overall electricity usage in an overlay on television channels, with colour-coding, when usage is high (i.e. it shows it 'going into the red', and asks people to turn off all non-essential appliances etc.). I suppose they've had moderate success, and I suppose it helps, but of course it's not enough. Amongst other things, they've also been working to 'educate' the public to use electricity more sparingly, and encourage the use of e.g. more energy-efficient light bulbs and so on (I think they even had a program where they gave away millions of them).
Slashdot Mirror
... for CPUs, there are effectively ZERO variable costs to the producer once you've purchased the chip and it's in your hands.
... make something once, get money forever.
Dedicated circuitry to create artificial scarcity and control actually adds unnecessary costs.
This might be useful in very specific scenarios where somebody, say, owns a supercomputer and rents it out, but even there, I'm sure there are far better solutions that don't involve the CPU hardware.
This is, like you suggest, just a BS wet dream of the manufacturers
Right now we probably have few enough major chip vendors that with a little bit of collusion, if they decided not to compete, they could probably pull something like this on us. This doesn't look likely right now, but it seems possible. Hopefully some other (possibly foreign) company would enter the market if that happened. Competition is healthy for a market.
Seemingly Texas. (Saying 'agreement to protect young users against sexual predators doesn't go far enough')
Every generation seems to think this is 'as good as it gets' and every generation has been proven wrong ... *sigh*, this nonsense again: This is a false induction fallacy - prior failed predictions have a grand total of ZERO 'predictive power' over whether or not future predictions will fail, because the entire circumstances are different each time in about a gazillion ways.
In case you missed the memo, libertarian isn't about trying to "optimise" the economy or about trying to "optimise" the use of resources, it's about freedom, or more specifically, the principle that liberty should not be expended for the sake of supposedly "optimising an economy".
If your absolute primary goal is artifically engineering the most "optimal" economy possible, then sure, curtailing individual liberties may in certain cases help that flawed goal.
As a result, as soon as a few helium sellers lower their prices, then the entire market would have to follow
Actually, that's the exact opposite of one of the primary principles of running a successful business, one of the first things you'll learn NOT to do in any kind of sensible business course, and one of the most common causes of business failure when newbs make this mistake.
What does that prove? Are you saying that if somebody made money from something, then the premise must've been fake? I don't get your point at all.
Oh yes, and the 'kicker' for that Perry Bible Fellowship is that it's all available on the Internet for free. And the top-selling music album in the US last week was from Radiohead - an album that's been available *legally* to download for free for some time.
I agree, the idea of government surveillance of all digital transactions - in fact, that would amount to all online transactions at some point, and eventually most payments - is an absolute abomination, and IMO nothing would justify anything approaching that, ever (although it might be inevitable, I'll resist).
Personally I don't think there is even a major problem that needs solving here. Some copyright infringement - even a lot of it perhaps - is inevitable, I say just learn to live with that, I think there will always be enough people who are honest enough to pay for something that you should be able to make a living if your work is half-decent (and if it's not, you shouldn't make a living at it). Perhaps I underestimate the scope (and future scope) of the problem, I don't know, but I'm missing the part where some gigantic travesty is busy occurring that warrants major legal changes. Movie producers are still making a lot of money on decent movies. If you're even half-good at comics you can make a lot of money (look at the Perry Bible Fellowship example just the other day on slashdot, over $300,000 sales practically on day one of the book to a 20-something kid producing work that is hardly genius). And in music, good and even mediocre musicians can still make a killing, many people do buy music online when they can, unnecessary middlement are being cut out etc.. In some senses musicians today have it better than ever before at any time in human history --- with a potentially reachable market of billions even crappy musicians can now find their niche, while technology has made it easier and cheaper than ever to produce and record music of better quality than was thinkable even for the rich just a few decades ago, with more and more options, more instruments and digital sounds/mixing etc., while a comparatively booming global economy means a market with tonnes more disposable income to spend on music than ever before. There are more radio stations than ever, plus streaming Internet radio stations, more clubs to play in than ever before in history, and a huge and growing market for music in other media such as movies and games that didn't exist 100 years ago. As burgeoning economies and improving technology pushes more and more peoples spending higher up the Maslow pyramid, entertainment expenditure will only become bigger. Maybe I've got rose-colours specs on but forgive me for not seeing the need to rush and solve this huge 'problem'.
In that case all physical copies will approach the price of the paper they're printed on, and all digital copies will approach the price of the wires they're carried on.
Only if copyright doesn't exist (or isn't enforced), yes. So in that sense, it's a "distortion" over what would otherwise be provided by the brute *laws of nature*, and is certainly a more abstract government than say, laws against murder. Copyright is essentially artificial scarcity and distribution control, but I'm inclined to go with saying it's a good thing. After all, without it, I promise you I would not be creating that graphic novel. You might argue some people will create stuff for free and go hungry or beg for tips, but copyright law doesn't preclude people from choosing to do so already. At least it gives creators a choice.
You're mistaken that the raw "value" or cost of a copyrighted work (available in say digital form) is only the bits to transfer it over networks - you're looking only at marginal/variable costs and not fixed costs. The true cost amounts to the fixed cost of production, which amounts to the creator's food, electricity and other infrastructure bills. If I spend three months creating the graphic novel, add all my monthly bills to eat etc., multiply by three and you have the actual cost of production --- thereafter, assuming the marginal cost of distribution to be zero, the "value" of each copy should be that cost divided by the number of copies made. This is incalculable, of course, so one must at least choose to (factoring in some risk too) amortise that cost over some number of copies if one merely wants to break even, let alone make money. You can't do this without copyright law.
It's not copyright law in itself that *creates* monopolies and cartels like the RIAA, anymore than it is (say) paint that causes graffiti. Nobody ever physically stopped any major business from truly competing with the recording industry cartels, it was a free market all along.
Are you suggesting that third parties inherently get harmed in order to produce graphic novels? The only possible externalities I can think of are not inherent (e.g. perhaps the publisher chooses a printer that purchases paper from a company that gets its raw materials from a forestry company that, say, pollutes a river that people downstream fish or grow crops from) ... unlike contract killings this would not be inherent to the market, it would be incidental both to the medium (e.g. I could choose to sell my graphic novel online instead) and to particular cases, where laws already exist, at least in principle, to protect people from having such external costs inflicted on them.
I don't think graphic novels represent a good example of a distorted market; it's fairly free in all respects, from producers to publishers, and the barrier to entry is low - almost anyone can produce a graphic novel these days. Music, yes, because of the recording industry cartels and their historic artificial control over major channels of distribution. This artificial control was possible due to technological constraints which are being eroded by advances in technology (in other words, technology is solving the problem all by itself, no government intervention required). Nonetheless from a pure free market perspective even the recording industry cartels do not represent a failure, since people have clearly always been willing to pay monopoly pricing even for lousy music which they do not need at all. Nobody was ever forced to buy an overpriced CD, people chose to do so voluntarily, so if people are willing to pay those prices, then surely that is the value to them - it's still mutually beneficial, and I still believe there are no true "losers" (i.e. the externalities you refer to), either in the music industry or the graphic novel industry (even if it was far from the ideal situation, people weren't "losing" anything).
I also don't think there is any reason why a really lousy graphic novel should cost the same as a really good one (since their marginal cost of reproduction would be about the same). Clearly the "value" (enjoyment or intellectual stimulation) derived by the user is not from the raw materials used in the production. The free market (i.e. laws of supply and demand) should allow the value of a graphic novel to be determined.
I think what you're getting at is that in the market for things like music and graphic novels, particularly with today's technology, is that the marginal cost of reproduction has approached almost zero - there is no longer natural scarcity, nor are distribution channels highly limited to physical controlled retail outlets. Hence all control and scarcity become artificial, and only copyright law - "artificial protection granted by society" - stands in the way of the cost of IP to the end-user approaching zero. Nonetheless I believe in that principle of artificial protection, to protect content creators (it always costs money i.e. time/food to create something), and on top of that the principle of freedom i.e. free markets should trump, i.e. creators set the conditions and price to the extent that technology allows. Government control is bad.
If I may further my argument: When you say "creators can control its distribution for their own profit", you are implying that the problem is that that profit comes at the 'expense' of others. But what does that mean exactly? If I choose not to buy some overpriced music from the recording industry cartels, I haven't lost anything I had before that music existed. I'm not poorer in any way at all. But what about those who part with their money for the overpriced CDs? They're not losing anything either, because all (voluntary) trade is mutually beneficial. If a CD purchaser (or a buyer of my overpriced graphic novel) was really going to be worse off making the purchase, they wouldn't do it. Hence, they have *benefited* from the purchase. There are no losers.
Tragedy of the commons doesn't apply here: If I work hard and create something that *never existed before* (say, I produce a cool new graphic novel), how does it *cost* you if you aren't able to see it because I priced it too high for you? Do you *lose* something that you had before? Do you wake up with less? No, at worst you end up in exactly the same position as before. You just might decide you *feel* more bitter, because yesterday you didn't know my work existed, today you know it exists and that you can't afford it - but you haven't lost anything at all (unless I stole your pens and paper to produce the thing).
Yeah, it wasn't intentional, I only afterwards noticed the earlier post higher up in the thread was you.
... I try to be appreciative of what I do have, not angry about what's "denied" me.
For me, arguing over whether it should be 0 or 20 or 120 years etc., just seems like arguing over different *degrees* of entitlement. It's that 'entitlement' that feels off to me; no matter what the duration, it still boils down to a law mandating that after some period, everybody (just for existing) becomes entitled to the fruits of my/your efforts. That doesn't feel right. If I worked while some kid sat on his butt, I should get to be as stingy as I want. I sort of have this mental image of someone walking up to an author and saying 'OK, 20 years has passed, gimme your work now' (OK, not 'gimme' though in the sense of taking some physical copy, but just the idea of it).
I'm not sure why we should ever necessarily be entitled to anything we haven't earned unless it's been granted; that kind of thinking leads to all sorts of other nasties (e.g. corruption)
Finally, some sense: Yes, music is overpriced, but this is not because copyright is somehow bad or wrong, it's because the recording industry has formed a cartel (and until not too long ago were able to control most production and distribution artificially) ... the free market and technology are currently solving this all by itself, interestingly enough. But anyway, the two (cartels vs copyright) are very separate issues: As an analogy, if a few people start painting graffiti around town, you don't solve the problem by getting rid of all paint. Copyright is not the problem with music pricing, cartels are.
So if I spend months toiling away writing a book, you would think it's "insane" to not be allowed to read it for free? I don't get that, sorry. Sorry if I just straw-man'd your argument, it's not clear to me how you are arguing things should work. Let me put it another way, if I spend months putting blood, sweat and tears into my book, why shouldn't I be allowed to charge you whatever I want for it if you want to read it? You're free not to buy/read it. But are you entitled to be able to read it under your own conditions? I'm not entitled to be able to listen to Britney's latest airheaded songs for free, I'm not entitled to play the latest computer games for free, etc. (again, you didn't say things should be free, I'm not sure what you're suggesting really)
As an author, I would of course be competing for your money not only with 3000 other new books a day that you could choose to read instead, and not only with all the free stuff to read on the Internet, but all the other ways you could choose to spend your time/money (e.g. comics/movies/games etc.), so market forces would dictate that I can't really charge "whatever I want"; on the contrary, content is currently exploding exponentially - e.g. just looking at books, there are literally more good books being published now than anyone can even feasibly read even if all they did was read all day.
(Just for the record I am all in favour of file sharing *networks* - a network is just a network, you can send legitimate files over it too.)
Apologies, "content producers are allowed to make copyright from their work" should have read "content producers should be allowed to make profit from their work". Artists should also remain free to choose whatever record companies they want (and they are), under whatever conditions they want and are willing to negotiate for the services of the record companies (which is technically a free market, even though there is a cartel, that is a separate issue to copyright).
I'd like to add that if copyright could be any specifiable length, authors that chose 1000 or more years would actually lead to their own works ending up 'locked up in vaults' (so to speak) years down the line because it would compete with comparatively more open content that would inevitably eventually flood the market (content is growing exponentially, content consumers have their pick). Most authors and content producers in general at least want to be remembered after their deaths and have their works read fairly widely someday - their work is their 'mark on society' - so there would be natural "competition" and pressure to choose more reasonable copyright duration.
What really offends in the music industry is the cartel and it's bullying behaviour - not copyright itself - people shouldn't confuse the two.
Actually I wasn't even thinking of music. What about books? (Over 3000 new books published a day!) Comics? Movies? Poetry? Software? (Open source - which actually relies on copyright law - excluded) Art? Photography? Openness remains an exception.
I don't really claim to have an answer, just saying that if almost everybody does "X" voluntarily, then "X" surely can't really be all that insane.
Even so, even if we look only at music, so record companies hold the copyright - again, they're just people/companies, if the current copyright period is so "insane" why DON'T they specify shorter copyright periods? Because of profit? So what, the content producers are allowed to make copyright from their work (in partnership with artists - and if artists go to them it's because they need/want them).
Personally, my own current opinion is that content producer should be able to specify the terms and duration of copyright --- it is, after all, their work; I'm not sure why anyone else inherently necessarily should somehow be entitled to make use of somebody else's hard work for free just for existing, unless the content producer agrees with that condition. This implies to me that, say, an author should even have the right to fully decide the copyright duration himself, be it 1 year or 1000 years - I mean, it's him that put the blood sweat and tears into creating the thing. A growing culture of entitlement is I believe a slippery slope to worse things in a society.
If it's really "insane", why aren't more content producers *voluntarily* reducing the copyright terms of their own works? I mean, a content producer might not be allowed to impose a longer copyright than the law specifies, but he/she sure is allowed to stipulate a shorter one (e.g. 'after 15 years this becomes public domain' or 'after my death this becomes public domain).
Pro-space exploration people [1] seem to be saying that space exploration has the status of a national or global "public good", whose benefits can't be captured by private organizations and therefore will be underfunded by the private sector compared to how much benefit can be so created.
No, I think you may have missed the point --- when people say space travel is "more important than economic considerations", I don't think they're claiming there is a "public good" at all, but rather, that we do it for reasons other than either it being a "public good" or being economically beneficial (i.e. *neither* of the two reasons you listed). Basically we do it because we are humans and we *like exploring*, simple as that.
I agree with you that this is an example of the broken window fallacy. I don't think anyone can definitively prove funding space travel benefits the economy more so than equivalently lower taxes would. BUT, we don't have to base every single decision we ever make on what's "overall best for the economy". Let me put it another way: Since we'd effectively be doing it because we'd 'like to do it', then from an economic perspective, it might best be classified as an entertainment expense (odd as that might sound).
People spend an awful amount of money on entertainment *anyway*, and while the libertarian in me screams at the idea of a government deciding to tax higher in order to fund space travel, I'd like to see more space travel (rather than spend that extra bit of money on e.g. a PS3 or hookers or whatever), and I doubt that private charities are going to ever effectively fill this role.
Oops, lost a tag after the first line there.
... so I have no doubt society can afford it.
Seriously though, imagine if society spent as much time and money and devotion on space travel as we probably do just on creating, distributing and reading news about Britney Spears *alone*. And that's just one of the many none-too-amazing things we expend our productivity/wealth on
Clever - ha ha ... and true enough.
No no, don't you see, economic goals trump absolutely everything else
... *grumble*. Like you say, let's do it because it's cool. It's not as if we're not spending most of our money on crap anyway, we've long since figured out how to take care of most of our basic needs.
Unfortunately, too many people do think that way these days.
Kids today, know the price of everything, and the value of nothing
For a machine to hose up like that just from a hot day, even a very hot day, it most likely means it wasn't well-ventilated enough (e.g. fan outlet too close to a wall or under a table etc.), or a fan wasn't working properly, and combined with that you'd probably have to be playing some serious 3D game or something for a prolonged period. You should leave quite a bit of space for the hot air to blow out and away from the computer.
It's not clear to me why all bloggers should be lumped together or treated as a "community". A blog is just a medium, like a blank piece of paper. If one painter behaves unprofessionally, nobody assumes it somehow reflects on the "entire community of painters as a whole". Likewise for cartoonists, or movie actors or directors, or radio DJs, or stand-up comedians, or writers, or "real" journalists for that matter. Treat professional individuals like professional individuals, and unprofessional ones like unprofessional ones, and scrap this silly obsession with regarding all bloggers like one single borg-like entity.
Here in South Africa, where electricity demand also currently outstrips supply for various stupid reasons, the government's police of "managing" the problem includes just such a thing: Broadcasting current overall electricity usage in an overlay on television channels, with colour-coding, when usage is high (i.e. it shows it 'going into the red', and asks people to turn off all non-essential appliances etc.). I suppose they've had moderate success, and I suppose it helps, but of course it's not enough. Amongst other things, they've also been working to 'educate' the public to use electricity more sparingly, and encourage the use of e.g. more energy-efficient light bulbs and so on (I think they even had a program where they gave away millions of them).