Now I ask you, what is the benefit of bring a new widget to market if everyone in the world can duplicate it immediately?
Your thought experiment is quite interesting because the moment this occurs, capitalism as we know it will come to an end, with the possible exception of raw materials needed for the machines. There will be simply no way imaginable (other then total lockdown of information on all levels and 24/7 surveilance of all "citizens") to stop "counterfeits". And as in millenia past there will still be people who will invent stuff to make their own life easier and share the results (very much the same force that drives GPL software today - with great success may I add).
Your theoretical world says that innovation occurs because some things will always be difficult
Some things will always be difficult, due to amount of materials and energy required.
But a deeper phillosophical question is this: capitalism is but a mere cludge designed to harness the animalistic forces of greed and selfishness that drive most of the human race and redirect them towards progress for the entire race. Unfortunately the point will come (as in your thought experiment) that this model will no longer be sustainable. There are two outcomes possible, an attempt to enforce the unworkable model, resulting in exreme, hellish outcomes (Orwellian 1984 would seem like a picnic compared to a total Rights Based Economy where everything operates on micro-payments and where your clothes fall appart as soon as you stop paying their "rights holder"). The second alternative is that humanity (or parts thereof) will evolve beyond greed based models and replace it with cooperation instead. Dudes like Marx were wrong in their models because for them to be operational they required humans to be behaving based on logic and compassion and not based on greed and lust for power. Whichever way this will turn, only time will tell but I know this: if you persist in trying to expand the greed/lust based behavioural models to ever increasing technological powers, you will end up with billions of monsters capable of unspeakable destruction and yet equipped only with mental abilities of a monkey. In your thought experiment, factor this: your magic replicator is capable of producing a nuclear bomb or a biotech or nanotech super-weapon in each basement, given only some blueprint. I do not wish to be around when that happens.
What you describe leads to an creative stall, where recycling old ideas or making minor improvements is far more effective than creating new innovations. If you spend the labor costs to develop something, your opponents gain it for free and place you at an economic disadvantage. No company would invest in something which it could have for free if someone else develops it first; what you have is a stalemate.
You repeat these patently false assumptions with no effort whatsoever to think any of them through in detail. The process I describe was in operation for most of the human history, unlike the current patent/copyright warfare that erupted (in major way) less then 100 years ago. Most of the vast amounts of art the human race now enjoys was produced before copyright. Furthermore you fell pray to the corporate propaganda which claims that the motivating force of creative processes is money. Bullshit. Artists create because they have an intrinsic need to express themselves, they will do it (as they have done for millenia) with or without monetary compensation. Some exceptional art deserves funding but it is by definition rare. Sicentists discover because they seek knowledge and peer recognition, greed has nothing to do with it. That is why we dont have "Einstein Bohr Corp" which owns all the patents on nuclear energy. Companies have tremendous advantage by employing engineers because a new widget gives them massive advantage over competitors who will by neccessity spend months to years catching up even with the widget's blueprint. You forget (as you are meant to by those who wish to rob us blind) that only most trivial products can be replicated in weeks. Anything of any complexity requires retooling of production lines, retraining of employees, procuring shipments of material and components, preparing marketing campaigns etc. In the meantime the company that invented the stuff is selling like mad. All that is required of them is to keep the development process secret by being a good employer and keeping their employees loyal. This way the companies must compete on true innovation but cannot slack off because competitors are chasing them constantly. What we have now is a corporate profeeteer dream, one can patent some semi-trivial but in common use part for 20 years and prevent everyone else from using it while you sell your overpriced and low quality product because it is the only one that has it. You sir are wholly owned and operated greedo-coroporate propaganda dispenser.
I take it you are against all concept of "intellectual property"
Yes
Books are just words strung together, so the only person who should be paid is the printing company and not the author?
Authors get paid for the labour of creation, not for the strings of words. This is the core of the confusion: some people without thinking assumed that the book (being a physical item) is the product of the author, while in fact the book is the product of the publisher and the information within is not trade-able and thus the payment to the author has to be arranged taking this into account. The most practical solution is some from patronage system. The same applies to other arts that do not have means of retrieving payment for the labour of creation such as physical objects (sale of originals) or live perfomance (admission fee). Science is a domain of academia where salaries are paid by academic institutions. Engineers can work on product improvements and get paid by companies, however those companies must recoup the cost of these improvements by taking advantage of their (brief) headstart over the competition only. Patents and copyrights are nothing but forms of corporate welfare and are anti-competetive, anti free-market devices designed by greedy people to prevent competition on the grounds of product quality and price.
I never argued otherwise, in fact if you read all the posts on these threads, this is precisely what I am insisting on: information (such as music) is not trade-able because it lacks the required pre-requisites for being "private property" or "labour".
At some level, everything is information
Not so, at least not from the perspective of trade which is the only angle we are discussing here. Trade is applicable to two classes of concepts: labour and "private property", one being defined as change of state of physical objects due to one's actions and the other as a certain class of physical objects. Its hard to get clearer that that and also there is no need to invoke exotic phillosophical concepts to undestand these simple premises.
it disappoints me that he doesn't always come out and say his point of view in a strong, clear-cut manner, but I accept that both Bush and Kerry are trying to make their positions as moderate and appealing to "swing voters" as possible right now.
So in the USA in order to win one has to become a political whore, molding one's opinions to appeal to some mythical "swing voters"? What happened to standing for one's convictions? Coalition governments? Minority Govenrments? What sort of deluded people will call "democracy" something so depraved and always resulting in victory of most "marketed" flavour of unapetizing corporate-politcal goo? I pity your country.
Not in this very specific case, the act of changing the state is initiated by a person and that person by acting is performing "labour" which is one of the two things economic exchanges apply to (the other being physical "private property").
Even if information doesn't have a physical state, it has a value placed on it by those who value the information.
I have been through this in countless other posts all over these threads: the fact that people believe something has "value" does not automagically result in the thing becoming a valid subject of economic exchange. An idiot can offer you money to buy the integer number 7 in his belief it is a "lucky" one. It does not however make integer numbers trade-able any more then information in general is.
The AC that responded before me hit on this with a pretty good example.
With a few mostly accidental exceptions, I do not read ACs as a rule since Slashdot does not email me when they post. Unlike some others, I do not spend all my waking hours hovering around here waiting for replies.
What exactly is employee Sneaky paying for?
He is paying for the act of divuldging of the information. To be precise: for the change of the state of the information from one of its allowed states to another, that is from "unknown" to "known" (relative to Sneaky).
I am an IT consultant in charge of several IT departments of small to medium sized corporations who do not have dedicated on-site IT staff or have just entry-level staff. I am also a freelance programmer. I occasionally contribute to various GPLed projects free of charge. I consider writing software a form of art to be free for all to share and enjoy.
From the US Treasury FAQ: In another sense, because they are legal tender, Federal Reserve notes are "backed" by all the goods and services in the economy. thus currency is equivalent to physical objects and labour. While it is true that you no longer can come to a bank and demand that your greenback be exchanged for an equivalent gold bullion, this was eliminated due to practical reasons but it did not eliminate the requirement that all currency be strictly backed. Otherwise a government if it gets in debt could simply print some more money. One has only to take a look at the fun some tin-pot dictatorships had with this idea to see where it leads to (hints: fraud, hyper-inflation, economic collapse)
You also say that things like songs are just "conceptual vapour". However people are willing to pay for them.
The fact that people are willing to pay for something does not make it a valid subject of commerce: some idiot will pay you to own the Sun or a square kilometer of vacuum or the integers from 1 to 9, yet neither of these are valid subjects of economic exchange. You assertion that as soon as some drooling moron wants to part with his money in exchange for some abstract concept, that concept becomes a valid subject of trade is silly.
Everything is trade, even if it involves money
Only a believer in Capitalism as Religion would make such a claim. There are many, many things excluded from the realm of trade, simply because they do not have the pre-requisites to be "private property" or "labour" and those are the only two kinds of things you can "trade" on a free market. Show me how do you trade integer numbers or love of a mother for her child and I will believe you.
You do realize that before copyright there was severe information hording and attacks against leakers to the point of murder in order to keep it secret?
The gold reserve was done away with years ago. There is currently nothing of physical, tangible value backing up a dollar. Try again.
I sure hope you are not a citizen of the USA because I as a Canadian should not be explaining this to you -
from the US Treasury FAQ:
"Congress has specified that a Federal Reserve Bank must hold collateral equal in value to the Federal Reserve notes that the Bank receives. This collateral is chiefly gold certificates and United States securities. This provides backing for the note issue. The idea was that if the Congress dissolved the Federal Reserve System, the United States would take over the notes (liabilities). This would meet the requirements of Section 411, but the government would also take over the assets, which would be of equal value. Federal Reserve notes represent a first lien on all the assets of the Federal Reserve Banks, and on the collateral specifically held against them"
It's hard to create good art/science if you you have to spend the majority of your waking hours "working for a living"
In case of art, yes it is but that is only the beginning of the process. Once you are recognized as an artist, sponsorships and means of earning income would present themselves. In essence it is an eliminations system, ensuring that only true artists with a drive to create are given the means to do so. In case of science, it is not a factor at all since you would be a member of academia and being paid your salary. Again, assuming that you are any good at science.
Such a proposal was never introduced to the floor of the House or Senate; if it had, you would have heard about it from EFF.
I was referring to this and myriad of similiar efforts under way every day of the week in the Senate and the House. We get these sort of proposals like clockwork and they get conglomerated in major acts every 4-8 years extending the terms of patents and copyrights. Witness the Copyright Extension Act and the HR507 Patent Terms Restoration Act (17 years) from the date of filing. So while you are likely right that the "Cher" act wasn't (I do not follow the minutia of proposals de-jeur) there is absolutely nothing counter-indicative to the predictions that these efforts are likely to continue and be successful.
There's between $500B and $1T of US currency in actual physical form. There's around $10T in actual US money around. The extra $9T+ is mostly in electronic form
No it is backed by physical objects like the gold reserve for example.
By law, there can be only one copy of a certain piece of money. By law, only those with the right to copy may legally copy a copyrighted work. What's the difference?
The difference is that one deals with exchange of physical goods by-proxy (laws are designed to prevent fraud) and the other deals with conceptual vapour (laws were designed by kings to control dissemination of inconvenient information and then adopted by greedy people for their own ends).
You're right that a bank would be committing fraud if it multiply issued the same virtual bills
Yes but this is not protected by copyright law but by banking laws that deal with currency.
By law, only those with the right to copy may legally copy a copyrighted work.
Mere fact of existance of this law does not make it either right or just.
The US currency system is called a "fiat" (faith) system for good reason. US currency is only worth something because someone else thinks that it's worth something, not because it's backed by anything. (Yes, federal reserve banks must have backing, but much of that is in assessed valuations and promisary notes.)
Which is the crucial and fundamental difference between currency and songs. One has physical objects (however valued) behind it and the other has nothing but conceptual vapour.
What evidence do you have that the Cher Act is more than just political satire,
The very fact that it was introduced is an indication of an undercurrent of iterest in it. Remember, there are extremely wealthy and powerful people who would stand to benefit enormously for generations from it. If past experience is anything to go by, it is anything but "satire". It is a political "trial baloon" designed to test the positions of various politicians so that the lobbyists know who to work on before the real proposal is made.
i hate the idea of those wealthy enough to afford to be a patron of the arts to control where our artistic culture is headed.
That is where provate foundations (and sometimes governments) come in. People are free to contribute to any type of foundation that sponsors particular kinds of art and thus direct the creative processes. Note that unlike now, that art better truly be art because the foundations will not likely sponsor Britney Spearses of the world (unless of course it was a foundation run by teenage boys).
What next, going to say it depends what the meaning or is is?
The "thing" in question must be a physical object because no other kind of "thing" (even if you accept Webster definition, which I do not) can be traded and thus conversly "free of price". This was the core of my objection.
A gene therapy patent filed before a child is born will have expired by the next generation.
Not if one manages to extend patents to 90+ years (efforts under way as we speak) or merely manage to apply copyright instead of patents to DNA. Never underestimate the resourcefulness of corporate greed. You will lose every time.
Very well then: people want access to information to be free, regardless of cost to the original creator(s) (in terms of money, time and/or effort). How's that?
While that might be true of some people, majority has a moral compass that tells them that a fair reward for some objects of art is in order. Do not confuse this however with the same system as one would expect to be present trading cars or hiring a carpenter. Art and science are fundamnetally different due to the fact that their chief output is information. Unique and different properties of which I was discussing here at length
do you not consider it proper that the creator(s) of something be paid fairly for it?
The question arises what is "fair"? Some performance artists can muster tens of thousands of people to attend a concert. Some others, due to nature of their art cannot do so. In a patronage system, exceptional artists of the second kind get paid by patrons, sometimes significant amounts. However the "value" of art is in the eye of the beholder.
Or do you honestly think that the cost of everything should be reduced to the cost of duplication and distribution?
In essence, yes. The costs of manufacturing/materials are the only things subject to trade and thus free market economy. The cost of functional design can be offset by the advantages of a head start over the competiton and the research is best left to academia.
Yes, the discovery process is what incurs the cost, but the sale of the information recoups the cost
But you cannot sell something that does not have the capability of being sold. This is the core of my argument. If you attempt to "adjust" laws to make this posssible you will quickly cause an avalanche of illogical laws that stem from this one "adjustment" and will eventually lead to ownership of DNA and pay-per-view schoolbooks.
If you wish to place "value" on something, you are free to find other ways of rewarding the process of discovery but information itself is not capable of carrying "value".
He does not own the image, merely the paper and the film
warhol painting of same.
the painting like the can is a unique physical object that cannot be near effortlessly (unlike the photo) reproduced. Additionally, a photo of the painting no longer qualifies since it is merely carrying information about a unique physical object
beethoven symphony, NYsymphony orchestra recording of same.
Both are information and thus cannot be traded.
why is it that the creation of a sound is so devalued by you relative to the creation of something more physical?
Because you are confusing the process/labour of creation, a physical object that is a result of some creative processes and the infromation that is the result of some other creative processes. I merely postulate that one of the three: information, cannot be traded because it does not have the required pre-requsites for trade. The other two were logical and traditional subjects to economic exchanges for millenia.
live performance was merely advertising for the sale of the recording. not the other way around.
Only because they figured out how to run a scam selling dimpled pieces of plastic. If things were as they should, performance would be the source of income and broadcasts/CDs promotion.
Only in your imagination. The point remains that none of these and countless other artists/scientists (many of whom died in poverty) were doing what they were doing for money. My original assertion that money is not the chief motivator of art and science stands.
However, you need to have the money to support your lifestyle before you can begin expressing yourself.
Its called working for living or getting a patron.
To respond to your assertion about science, unfortunately, at least for me, the progress of science based solely in academia by the scientists looking merely for recognition is far too slow a pace
The alternative leads to coporate supermacy and eventual pay-per-use status of information. I will rather have slower progress in frivolous science (such as 20 viagra knock-offs) and no threat of corporate ownership of DNA, thank you.
pay someone to dissemminate.... Even a low-budgeter like Clerks still ran in the 5-digits for production alone
This problem exists only because people figured out to mess with law to create this situation. The budget for "clerks" would be much smaller yet if it was made by artists for love of art, funded by a foundation. Making money on art is not a viable option.
I think this argument will be decidedly settled when the "industrialized" world will enact draconian pay-per-use laws backed by enforced use of DRM and near death penalties on infringers while what are today "developing" countries will enjoy freedom of academia and freedom of companies to compete based on product quality instead of their clever use of patent law. Unfortunately if your side of argument wins here, it might prove too late for us to catch up after that happens, not to mention that we might be unable to even talk about it, given the steady deterioration of our rights to exchange of ideas and speach which this process is partially design to restrict. The only winners in your way of things are corporate interests.
Logic dictates that if two people agree on something and codify it then you have a valid contract.
They might agree on something indeed, but this agreement would not be valid in law if they were to agree on something contrary to basic humanist principles: a murder for hire for example.
You are bound to the idea that "private property" must be physical, which is a creation that you have decided to make into existenance.
Yes I am bound to it and no it is not conjured out of thin air but a result of reason that prevailed for 5000 years of recorded history until some men figured they knew better and decided to fuck with it some measly 200 years ago. The debate is by no means settled and I feel extremely strongly that those men made a terrible mistake due to lack of foresight.
People have dominion over thier creative works. It is a principle that is rooted in the notion that it is the best way to promote the creative arts.
both physical (bills & coins) and non-physical (wire transfer, etc) forms.
No it doesnt. The physical money has to exists to back up the echange of information about it. If one bank were to decide they do not need cash to back the transaction up they would be commiting fraud. Each banknote is unique and can be owned only by one person at a time. This is not the same for music where no physical equivalent exists and which is freely replicated at no cost. Your analogy would be correct if banks were permitted to make up amounts in their vaults from thin air.
Slashdot Mirror
Your thought experiment is quite interesting because the moment this occurs, capitalism as we know it will come to an end, with the possible exception of raw materials needed for the machines. There will be simply no way imaginable (other then total lockdown of information on all levels and 24/7 surveilance of all "citizens") to stop "counterfeits". And as in millenia past there will still be people who will invent stuff to make their own life easier and share the results (very much the same force that drives GPL software today - with great success may I add).
Your theoretical world says that innovation occurs because some things will always be difficult
Some things will always be difficult, due to amount of materials and energy required.
But a deeper phillosophical question is this: capitalism is but a mere cludge designed to harness the animalistic forces of greed and selfishness that drive most of the human race and redirect them towards progress for the entire race. Unfortunately the point will come (as in your thought experiment) that this model will no longer be sustainable. There are two outcomes possible, an attempt to enforce the unworkable model, resulting in exreme, hellish outcomes (Orwellian 1984 would seem like a picnic compared to a total Rights Based Economy where everything operates on micro-payments and where your clothes fall appart as soon as you stop paying their "rights holder"). The second alternative is that humanity (or parts thereof) will evolve beyond greed based models and replace it with cooperation instead. Dudes like Marx were wrong in their models because for them to be operational they required humans to be behaving based on logic and compassion and not based on greed and lust for power. Whichever way this will turn, only time will tell but I know this: if you persist in trying to expand the greed/lust based behavioural models to ever increasing technological powers, you will end up with billions of monsters capable of unspeakable destruction and yet equipped only with mental abilities of a monkey. In your thought experiment, factor this: your magic replicator is capable of producing a nuclear bomb or a biotech or nanotech super-weapon in each basement, given only some blueprint. I do not wish to be around when that happens.
You repeat these patently false assumptions with no effort whatsoever to think any of them through in detail. The process I describe was in operation for most of the human history, unlike the current patent/copyright warfare that erupted (in major way) less then 100 years ago. Most of the vast amounts of art the human race now enjoys was produced before copyright. Furthermore you fell pray to the corporate propaganda which claims that the motivating force of creative processes is money. Bullshit. Artists create because they have an intrinsic need to express themselves, they will do it (as they have done for millenia) with or without monetary compensation. Some exceptional art deserves funding but it is by definition rare. Sicentists discover because they seek knowledge and peer recognition, greed has nothing to do with it. That is why we dont have "Einstein Bohr Corp" which owns all the patents on nuclear energy. Companies have tremendous advantage by employing engineers because a new widget gives them massive advantage over competitors who will by neccessity spend months to years catching up even with the widget's blueprint. You forget (as you are meant to by those who wish to rob us blind) that only most trivial products can be replicated in weeks. Anything of any complexity requires retooling of production lines, retraining of employees, procuring shipments of material and components, preparing marketing campaigns etc. In the meantime the company that invented the stuff is selling like mad. All that is required of them is to keep the development process secret by being a good employer and keeping their employees loyal. This way the companies must compete on true innovation but cannot slack off because competitors are chasing them constantly. What we have now is a corporate profeeteer dream, one can patent some semi-trivial but in common use part for 20 years and prevent everyone else from using it while you sell your overpriced and low quality product because it is the only one that has it. You sir are wholly owned and operated greedo-coroporate propaganda dispenser.
Yes
Books are just words strung together, so the only person who should be paid is the printing company and not the author?
Authors get paid for the labour of creation, not for the strings of words. This is the core of the confusion: some people without thinking assumed that the book (being a physical item) is the product of the author, while in fact the book is the product of the publisher and the information within is not trade-able and thus the payment to the author has to be arranged taking this into account. The most practical solution is some from patronage system. The same applies to other arts that do not have means of retrieving payment for the labour of creation such as physical objects (sale of originals) or live perfomance (admission fee). Science is a domain of academia where salaries are paid by academic institutions. Engineers can work on product improvements and get paid by companies, however those companies must recoup the cost of these improvements by taking advantage of their (brief) headstart over the competition only. Patents and copyrights are nothing but forms of corporate welfare and are anti-competetive, anti free-market devices designed by greedy people to prevent competition on the grounds of product quality and price.
I never argued otherwise, in fact if you read all the posts on these threads, this is precisely what I am insisting on: information (such as music) is not trade-able because it lacks the required pre-requisites for being "private property" or "labour".
At some level, everything is information
Not so, at least not from the perspective of trade which is the only angle we are discussing here. Trade is applicable to two classes of concepts: labour and "private property", one being defined as change of state of physical objects due to one's actions and the other as a certain class of physical objects. Its hard to get clearer that that and also there is no need to invoke exotic phillosophical concepts to undestand these simple premises.
So in the USA in order to win one has to become a political whore, molding one's opinions to appeal to some mythical "swing voters"? What happened to standing for one's convictions? Coalition governments? Minority Govenrments? What sort of deluded people will call "democracy" something so depraved and always resulting in victory of most "marketed" flavour of unapetizing corporate-politcal goo? I pity your country.
Not in this very specific case, the act of changing the state is initiated by a person and that person by acting is performing "labour" which is one of the two things economic exchanges apply to (the other being physical "private property").
Even if information doesn't have a physical state, it has a value placed on it by those who value the information.
I have been through this in countless other posts all over these threads: the fact that people believe something has "value" does not automagically result in the thing becoming a valid subject of economic exchange. An idiot can offer you money to buy the integer number 7 in his belief it is a "lucky" one. It does not however make integer numbers trade-able any more then information in general is.
With a few mostly accidental exceptions, I do not read ACs as a rule since Slashdot does not email me when they post. Unlike some others, I do not spend all my waking hours hovering around here waiting for replies.
What exactly is employee Sneaky paying for?
He is paying for the act of divuldging of the information. To be precise: for the change of the state of the information from one of its allowed states to another, that is from "unknown" to "known" (relative to Sneaky).
I am an IT consultant in charge of several IT departments of small to medium sized corporations who do not have dedicated on-site IT staff or have just entry-level staff. I am also a freelance programmer. I occasionally contribute to various GPLed projects free of charge. I consider writing software a form of art to be free for all to share and enjoy.
From the US Treasury FAQ: In another sense, because they are legal tender, Federal Reserve notes are "backed" by all the goods and services in the economy. thus currency is equivalent to physical objects and labour. While it is true that you no longer can come to a bank and demand that your greenback be exchanged for an equivalent gold bullion, this was eliminated due to practical reasons but it did not eliminate the requirement that all currency be strictly backed. Otherwise a government if it gets in debt could simply print some more money. One has only to take a look at the fun some tin-pot dictatorships had with this idea to see where it leads to (hints: fraud, hyper-inflation, economic collapse)
You also say that things like songs are just "conceptual vapour". However people are willing to pay for them.
The fact that people are willing to pay for something does not make it a valid subject of commerce: some idiot will pay you to own the Sun or a square kilometer of vacuum or the integers from 1 to 9, yet neither of these are valid subjects of economic exchange. You assertion that as soon as some drooling moron wants to part with his money in exchange for some abstract concept, that concept becomes a valid subject of trade is silly.
Everything is trade, even if it involves money
Only a believer in Capitalism as Religion would make such a claim. There are many, many things excluded from the realm of trade, simply because they do not have the pre-requisites to be "private property" or "labour" and those are the only two kinds of things you can "trade" on a free market. Show me how do you trade integer numbers or love of a mother for her child and I will believe you.
You do realize that before copyright there was severe information hording and attacks against leakers to the point of murder in order to keep it secret?
You mean something like this?
I sure hope you are not a citizen of the USA because I as a Canadian should not be explaining this to you - from the US Treasury FAQ:
"Congress has specified that a Federal Reserve Bank must hold collateral equal in value to the Federal Reserve notes that the Bank receives. This collateral is chiefly gold certificates and United States securities. This provides backing for the note issue. The idea was that if the Congress dissolved the Federal Reserve System, the United States would take over the notes (liabilities). This would meet the requirements of Section 411, but the government would also take over the assets, which would be of equal value. Federal Reserve notes represent a first lien on all the assets of the Federal Reserve Banks, and on the collateral specifically held against them"
In case of art, yes it is but that is only the beginning of the process. Once you are recognized as an artist, sponsorships and means of earning income would present themselves. In essence it is an eliminations system, ensuring that only true artists with a drive to create are given the means to do so. In case of science, it is not a factor at all since you would be a member of academia and being paid your salary. Again, assuming that you are any good at science.
I was referring to this and myriad of similiar efforts under way every day of the week in the Senate and the House. We get these sort of proposals like clockwork and they get conglomerated in major acts every 4-8 years extending the terms of patents and copyrights. Witness the Copyright Extension Act and the HR507 Patent Terms Restoration Act (17 years) from the date of filing. So while you are likely right that the "Cher" act wasn't (I do not follow the minutia of proposals de-jeur) there is absolutely nothing counter-indicative to the predictions that these efforts are likely to continue and be successful.
No it is backed by physical objects like the gold reserve for example.
By law, there can be only one copy of a certain piece of money. By law, only those with the right to copy may legally copy a copyrighted work. What's the difference?
The difference is that one deals with exchange of physical goods by-proxy (laws are designed to prevent fraud) and the other deals with conceptual vapour (laws were designed by kings to control dissemination of inconvenient information and then adopted by greedy people for their own ends).
You're right that a bank would be committing fraud if it multiply issued the same virtual bills
Yes but this is not protected by copyright law but by banking laws that deal with currency.
By law, only those with the right to copy may legally copy a copyrighted work.
Mere fact of existance of this law does not make it either right or just.
The US currency system is called a "fiat" (faith) system for good reason. US currency is only worth something because someone else thinks that it's worth something, not because it's backed by anything. (Yes, federal reserve banks must have backing, but much of that is in assessed valuations and promisary notes.)
Which is the crucial and fundamental difference between currency and songs. One has physical objects (however valued) behind it and the other has nothing but conceptual vapour.
The very fact that it was introduced is an indication of an undercurrent of iterest in it. Remember, there are extremely wealthy and powerful people who would stand to benefit enormously for generations from it. If past experience is anything to go by, it is anything but "satire". It is a political "trial baloon" designed to test the positions of various politicians so that the lobbyists know who to work on before the real proposal is made.
Perheaps I was unfair but the Libertarians I run into however have had peculiar notions of value of things.
That is where provate foundations (and sometimes governments) come in. People are free to contribute to any type of foundation that sponsors particular kinds of art and thus direct the creative processes. Note that unlike now, that art better truly be art because the foundations will not likely sponsor Britney Spearses of the world (unless of course it was a foundation run by teenage boys).
The "thing" in question must be a physical object because no other kind of "thing" (even if you accept Webster definition, which I do not) can be traded and thus conversly "free of price". This was the core of my objection.
Not if one manages to extend patents to 90+ years (efforts under way as we speak) or merely manage to apply copyright instead of patents to DNA. Never underestimate the resourcefulness of corporate greed. You will lose every time.
While that might be true of some people, majority has a moral compass that tells them that a fair reward for some objects of art is in order. Do not confuse this however with the same system as one would expect to be present trading cars or hiring a carpenter. Art and science are fundamnetally different due to the fact that their chief output is information. Unique and different properties of which I was discussing here at length
do you not consider it proper that the creator(s) of something be paid fairly for it?
The question arises what is "fair"? Some performance artists can muster tens of thousands of people to attend a concert. Some others, due to nature of their art cannot do so. In a patronage system, exceptional artists of the second kind get paid by patrons, sometimes significant amounts. However the "value" of art is in the eye of the beholder.
Or do you honestly think that the cost of everything should be reduced to the cost of duplication and distribution?
In essence, yes. The costs of manufacturing/materials are the only things subject to trade and thus free market economy. The cost of functional design can be offset by the advantages of a head start over the competiton and the research is best left to academia.
But you cannot sell something that does not have the capability of being sold. This is the core of my argument. If you attempt to "adjust" laws to make this posssible you will quickly cause an avalanche of illogical laws that stem from this one "adjustment" and will eventually lead to ownership of DNA and pay-per-view schoolbooks.
If you wish to place "value" on something, you are free to find other ways of rewarding the process of discovery but information itself is not capable of carrying "value".
He does not own the image, merely the paper and the film
warhol painting of same.
the painting like the can is a unique physical object that cannot be near effortlessly (unlike the photo) reproduced. Additionally, a photo of the painting no longer qualifies since it is merely carrying information about a unique physical object
beethoven symphony, NYsymphony orchestra recording of same.
Both are information and thus cannot be traded.
why is it that the creation of a sound is so devalued by you relative to the creation of something more physical?
Because you are confusing the process/labour of creation, a physical object that is a result of some creative processes and the infromation that is the result of some other creative processes. I merely postulate that one of the three: information, cannot be traded because it does not have the required pre-requsites for trade. The other two were logical and traditional subjects to economic exchanges for millenia.
live performance was merely advertising for the sale of the recording. not the other way around.
Only because they figured out how to run a scam selling dimpled pieces of plastic. If things were as they should, performance would be the source of income and broadcasts/CDs promotion.
Only in your imagination. The point remains that none of these and countless other artists/scientists (many of whom died in poverty) were doing what they were doing for money. My original assertion that money is not the chief motivator of art and science stands.
However, you need to have the money to support your lifestyle before you can begin expressing yourself.
Its called working for living or getting a patron.
To respond to your assertion about science, unfortunately, at least for me, the progress of science based solely in academia by the scientists looking merely for recognition is far too slow a pace
The alternative leads to coporate supermacy and eventual pay-per-use status of information. I will rather have slower progress in frivolous science (such as 20 viagra knock-offs) and no threat of corporate ownership of DNA, thank you.
pay someone to dissemminate .... Even a low-budgeter like Clerks still ran in the 5-digits for production alone
This problem exists only because people figured out to mess with law to create this situation. The budget for "clerks" would be much smaller yet if it was made by artists for love of art, funded by a foundation. Making money on art is not a viable option.
I think this argument will be decidedly settled when the "industrialized" world will enact draconian pay-per-use laws backed by enforced use of DRM and near death penalties on infringers while what are today "developing" countries will enjoy freedom of academia and freedom of companies to compete based on product quality instead of their clever use of patent law. Unfortunately if your side of argument wins here, it might prove too late for us to catch up after that happens, not to mention that we might be unable to even talk about it, given the steady deterioration of our rights to exchange of ideas and speach which this process is partially design to restrict. The only winners in your way of things are corporate interests.
They might agree on something indeed, but this agreement would not be valid in law if they were to agree on something contrary to basic humanist principles: a murder for hire for example.
You are bound to the idea that "private property" must be physical, which is a creation that you have decided to make into existenance.
Yes I am bound to it and no it is not conjured out of thin air but a result of reason that prevailed for 5000 years of recorded history until some men figured they knew better and decided to fuck with it some measly 200 years ago. The debate is by no means settled and I feel extremely strongly that those men made a terrible mistake due to lack of foresight.
People have dominion over thier creative works. It is a principle that is rooted in the notion that it is the best way to promote the creative arts.
Notion with which I disagree strongly.
No it doesnt. The physical money has to exists to back up the echange of information about it. If one bank were to decide they do not need cash to back the transaction up they would be commiting fraud. Each banknote is unique and can be owned only by one person at a time. This is not the same for music where no physical equivalent exists and which is freely replicated at no cost. Your analogy would be correct if banks were permitted to make up amounts in their vaults from thin air.
I am not sure if I want to know.... there is no greater source of mind-warping illogic then Hollywood films.