You are suggesting cause and effect in a way that I find unlikely.
theStorminMormon:
"See, now I think that that is somewhat less than sane. Picture this scenario: J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter is picked up by a small publisher and they sell a few hundred thousand copies. This gets the attention of a giant publishing house, which quickly rushes out millions of copies of the book and refuses to pay Rowling anything."
You suggest her next choice is limited to writing a book then getting ripped off by a bigger publisher or stop writing. Why wouldn't she go to the big publisher for her next book and ask for an upfront payment before she writes another book. Or, better yet, why doesn't she sell it on-line herself and tell people if they want her to write another book they need to buy from her website.
I don't think we can reliably predict what will happen if we abolish copyright. I think it is unlikely the art creator will get the short end of the deal if we do. They are still creating something people want to buy, this has value.
I agree with you to some degree. There should be legal protection for artists and their ability to profit from their work. I am just not sure the current system protects artists as much as it protects art distributors.
Hey Gates, how stupid do you think we are? Once again you are trying to make sure there is a surplus of IT workers so you and others like you can treat the IT workers like shit.
It is funny how he doesn't manage to explain how our wages have remained stagnant for 6 or 7 years in light of a 100,000/year job growth. Shouldn't such a demand for IT workers cause wages to rise?
If wages rose to meet the demand for IT workers wouldn't computer science degrees become popular again?
If Gates is really worried about what he is whining about in this article, the solution is in his own hands. He doesn't have to plead with our politicians to increase his access to foreign workers. He just needs to be willing to pay his workers more.
The real question is in the bigger picture. How is it that Gates and people like him have been allowed to manipulate government policy so that most Americans wages have been relatively stagnant for over a decade? This despite statistics that suggest productivity is increasing? Does our government still work for "We The People"?
Sorry about the tangent put part of this is our fault. Many Americans have been trained to think the government is the enemy. The government is not the enemy; the government is us, you and I. The government is the means through which we work collectively to protect ourselves as individuals.
For example, without government we would have to test our own food and water for poisons and toxins. We would have to band together in groups to protect ourselves from each other. We would have to find a means to force our employers to pay the wages we agreed to. Without government the individual is powerless.
So, when it comes to corporations misusing our system to keep our wages down, dump oil on our beaches, release toxins into our ground water, or some other similarly destructive behavior it is up to us to stop it. Our means to fix these kinds of problems is our government. Now we need to decide if we want to use this government to solve our problems or scrap it, start over and create a new one.
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You are suggesting cause and effect in a way that I find unlikely.
theStorminMormon:
"See, now I think that that is somewhat less than sane. Picture this scenario: J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter is picked up by a small publisher and they sell a few hundred thousand copies. This gets the attention of a giant publishing house, which quickly rushes out millions of copies of the book and refuses to pay Rowling anything."
You suggest her next choice is limited to writing a book then getting ripped off by a bigger publisher or stop writing. Why wouldn't she go to the big publisher for her next book and ask for an upfront payment before she writes another book. Or, better yet, why doesn't she sell it on-line herself and tell people if they want her to write another book they need to buy from her website.
I don't think we can reliably predict what will happen if we abolish copyright. I think it is unlikely the art creator will get the short end of the deal if we do. They are still creating something people want to buy, this has value.
I agree with you to some degree. There should be legal protection for artists and their ability to profit from their work. I am just not sure the current system protects artists as much as it protects art distributors.
JohnHey Gates, how stupid do you think we are? Once again you are trying to make sure there is a surplus of IT workers so you and others like you can treat the IT workers like shit.
It is funny how he doesn't manage to explain how our wages have remained stagnant for 6 or 7 years in light of a 100,000/year job growth. Shouldn't such a demand for IT workers cause wages to rise?
If wages rose to meet the demand for IT workers wouldn't computer science degrees become popular again?
If Gates is really worried about what he is whining about in this article, the solution is in his own hands. He doesn't have to plead with our politicians to increase his access to foreign workers. He just needs to be willing to pay his workers more.
The real question is in the bigger picture. How is it that Gates and people like him have been allowed to manipulate government policy so that most Americans wages have been relatively stagnant for over a decade? This despite statistics that suggest productivity is increasing? Does our government still work for "We The People"?
Sorry about the tangent put part of this is our fault. Many Americans have been trained to think the government is the enemy. The government is not the enemy; the government is us, you and I. The government is the means through which we work collectively to protect ourselves as individuals.
For example, without government we would have to test our own food and water for poisons and toxins. We would have to band together in groups to protect ourselves from each other. We would have to find a means to force our employers to pay the wages we agreed to. Without government the individual is powerless.
So, when it comes to corporations misusing our system to keep our wages down, dump oil on our beaches, release toxins into our ground water, or some other similarly destructive behavior it is up to us to stop it. Our means to fix these kinds of problems is our government. Now we need to decide if we want to use this government to solve our problems or scrap it, start over and create a new one.