As to alternative models, here is one that seems to work well.
Pandora Radio streams all sorts of content free to the users. Now, much like a radio station, they pay some sort of fee, but I, the user, do not. Unlike a traditional radio station though, they also offer* all the information* and a link to Itunes to purchase the music you enjoy. I have discovered countless new artists, and purchased many albums at a reasonable price through this model. I also have a load of music that I only enjoy a few songs of. I don’t have to purchase an album for that. They don’t play just the single, they play the album. After a few weeks, you can pretty much listen to an entire artist’s catalogue. The bet is that having free access to content will encourage you to purchase. It does. When I purchase an album now, I’m sure that I’m getting value for my money. If I don’t want filler, I can download individual songs only. I also can direct my monetary support directly to the artists whom I like rather than to their labels through two second web search. The point though, is that model is substantially different in that the user can go on using the entirety of the content for free, basically forever. It shows that end users are a poor source of dependable direct income. A content provider though, is a steady source of small fees, and provides the necessary exposure to the fickle end users who may or may not pay for the work.
Copyright is immoral. It is reducing the availability of works so that money can be made by an individual or a corporation. Not just by engineering scarcity, but by using state strong-arm tactics to force people not to produe cheaper versions. Arguably it is a necessary evil, in that it funds creativity, but there’s no absolute right to make a profit of your work.
Patents can be abused too, certainly all software patents, or patents on ideas rather than techniques, such as on uses for genes or medicines rather than techniques for production, are inherently immoral. A patent on a certain type of menu in a video game, for example, rather than on the implementation (which is copyrighted in the code) does nothing but retard creatviity.
As for the need for copyright, music wasn’t copyrightable until well into the twentieth century and most works were produced with no copyright, like Shakespear’s work, or with much shorter terms of copyright, like Dr Johnson. So would should Michael Bay, say, get a guaranteed profit off his works specifically because his obsolete business model requires the strong arm of the state to make money? I saw an interview with a musician I like saying piracy means she has to perform live, because it’s not possible to make a living from record sales. Well, fine, then perform live. Cinema income has gone up while piracy has been on the rise for movies. So they should try an make money from that, not by exerting their superior force against people. Copyright in itself is immoral. If it is fostering creativity it may still be defensible. If it does nothing but allow Mickey to keep paying off for Disney decades after his creator died, because they’ve got the money to pay off lobbyists and Sonny Bono to get whatever law they like passed, then it’s indefensible. Even if the same law keeps a bit of income flowing to people near the bottom of the profession, who’d benefit just as much from a tenth of the length of copyright protection.
I have since read the paper. The proposal was that the system would be entirely voluntary. Feel better?
Not at all. They would be reaping the tax benefits, education benefits, and consumer surplus from a market not constrained by monopolists.
Basically, nothing is right about the current system. It’s a poor incentive program, because the incentive only promises monopoly rents (which are themselves bad), but not the consumer surplus from new technologies. We are paying a massive tax once (monopoly rents) and then again (undervalued consumer surplus) and then again (lack of complimentary goods patents) and then again (resources wasted in patent races) and then…
Fifteen years later.
I suggest you read the paper. You may find the empirical research it cites on the problem with the current system enlightening.
But all of Shakespeare’s plays were mundane, explicitly profit-driven works. He was the soap opera writer of his day. And most of Leonardo’s works were explicitly profit-driven works. He was the celebrity photographer of his day. And so on and so forth.
Clearly a lack of copyright doesn’t prevent the production of explicitly profit-driven works.
Arguably, depending on what end you intend to meet by doing so.
Yeah, of course there are there are. J.K Rowling would be fantastically wealthy from the sale of her books just from first day releases, signed copies, movie rights and so forth even if she had never sold even single copy of a book. Many poets have made good livings selling books at poetry readings. David Moody made good money out the “Autumn” book selling approved copies even though the works were in PDF format with no copy protection.
Whether any of these would replace conventional dead-tree sales seems irrelevant because I’m not entirely convinced that they *need *to.
One thing I think we can safely say. and that is that the number of books isn’t decreasing. By the time you factor in all the fan fiction, “Autumn” style novels, porno literature and so forth, there would be orders of magnitude more books being written today than at any other time in history, most of it being done for free.
Now you might argue that this is quantity over quality, but I’m not convinced that is true. The better writers, like Moody, get picked up by commercial publishers but in a scenario where they commercial publishers don’t exist I am not convinced that the total number of top tier books being written would be any less than it is today.
I believe that you are underestimating how many top tier artists create for the sake of creation with no clear desire for reward. Book like “Lord of the Rings” would still be created regardless of whether the author got paid or not. Tolkein wrote LoTR as a labor of love, and published it as an afterthought. If he had written it today, it would be put on the net if no publishers existed. The same goes for most of the works that win the top literature prizes. These works mostly aren’t written to make money.
The purely commercial hacks might be doing less writing if they couldn’t get any reward, but then again I have seen plenty of freely available stuff that is as good as Michael Crichton or Alistair McClean anyway, so I doubt that we would miss them much.
I guess my point is that digital reproduction taketh away, and it giveth. If it takes away the financial incentive for writing, the fact that writers can publish a 500 page manuscript for free, and publish updated versions for free, means that there will be more writers and more literature, not less. We will only be losing the commercial hacks. The types of people who write great works rarely do so to make money anyway, so the net effect on humanity is probably positive.
The same basic arguments go for most other media: music, photography and so forth. There’s plenty of top notch material available for free right now. It’s in no way obvious that the loss of purely commercial “artists” will lead to a reduction in the volume or quality of the art.
So even if we accept that piracy will lead to the utter demise of purely commercial artists, I have to question why we should be concerned with this. Is there something special about commercial artists that means that their disappearance should be mourned?
So when pirates “stealing the content on the CD”, the owner of the CD can no longer play it, because it no longer contains any information.
Talk about mind bogglingly stupid. No matter how you spin it, piracy does not deprive the owner of a damn thing that actually exists. Not the physical object and not the information.
Wrong yet again. The owner has the right to control the distribution of his work. Pirates take that away from him without lawful authority or compensation.
Blake, you understand, don’t you, that I’m talking about a context in which the copying of the work is easy for anyone to do willy-nilly?
Other contexts are different, of course.
You don’t think the very existence of those particular first-day release, special signed copies, movie rights, and so forth, depended quite explicitly on speculation concerning the exclusively-righted sales of books?
“Many?” I doubt there are ten poets in America who make a good living selling books at poetry readings. Am I wrong?
I know I’m making it difficult to provide evidence, but nevertheless, I’m concerned about this kind of evidence because it seems to derive its significance very much from being ensconced within the current copyright system. In other words, I’m not confident that something like this shouldn’t be thought of simply as a stunt which can work only as a kind of act of protest against an already-existing copyright system.
One thing I think we can safely say. and that is that the number of books isn’t decreasing. By the time you factor in all the fan fiction, “Autumn” style novels, porno literature and so forth, there would be orders of magnitude more books being written today than at any other time in history, most of it being done for free.
Now you might argue that this is quantity over quality, but I’m not convinced that is true. The better writers, like Moody, get picked up by commercial publishers but in a scenario where they commercial publishers don’t exist I am not convinced that the total number of top tier books being written would be any less than it is today.
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Fair points but again you’re talking about “passion-driven” works.
Every instance of a work that I created is my property. However I may agree to sell one /give one away/ or sit on all copies. As creator it is my prerogative. I am the only authorized source of my work. You making a copy without my permission deprives me of that copy of my work. You don’t get to say “but you have other copies”. That is irrelevant. As creator I get to dictate how many instances of my work I want to exist in the world, not you or anyone else. End of story.
As the holder of IP (a copyright for a journal article) it is my right to decide if copies shuld be made and what to charge for them. If you really want a copy of my article and it’s not available and I refuse to allow anymore copies, then too fing bad for you. If I want to charge $1000 for a copy but that is too expensive for you then too fing bad again. I created it so I (which means not you) get to control it.
But that’s not really the issue is it? It’s about pirated music and movies.
The problem is if someone pirates a song or a movie, it is hurting Sony or BMG who did not create anything. They bought the rights (and if it is music, probably for a pittance) and while they do need to pay royalties, they are way out of proportion with the work put into it. Yes there are people who will steal if they can, but most see the dichotomy (I would argue hypocracy) that the IP really belongs to the artist but the money goes to someone else. If this is still accurate, how much did you cost Adele for stealing her latest song? Probably less than 9 cents.
Pirate do create something: a better content distribution system. The failing of copyright holders to create proper digital content distribution systems is one of the primary forces driving piracy.
If you believe discussing this warrants a new thread, I’d be happy to create one.
Better how? The literal thief of physical objects could say he’s created a “better content distribution system”… but he’d be wrong because he’s equivocating on “better.” What’s needed, then, is to know what “better” is supposed to mean when you use it in the phrase “better content distribution system.”
I think you could argue that society on the aggregate has determined that copying protected works without permission is immoral. I find this analogous to privacy laws - how exactly are peeping toms immoral? If someone wants to watch you undress, how is that harming you? How about wiretapping - surely there’s no harm in someone simply listening in to your conversations for their own personal entertainment?
Another analogy - do you see sneaking into a museum to be immoral? Sure, the museum wants to charge me money to view their works, but I don’t want to pay - so I should get to see the works anyway? After all, it doesn’t cost the museum anything just to have someone look at a painting. How about sneaking into a movie theatre that is not full (hence you are not depriving the theatre of a paying customer)?
Perhaps you view all of the above activities as being morally neutral as well, but I think the majority of society views them as being immoral.
Missed the edit window - but I want to add that I think in the future it is possible that society’s view on IP (at least with respect to media) could change from how it is today - it could be a workable system to have all works just become part of the public domain by default (as some would argue was the case prior to IP laws). If that happened, content creators who wished to profit from their work would probably have to set up an arrangement where they are paid just for the act of working (eg. patronage, donations) rather than compensated based on how many copies of the work are distributed.
Of course, without an expected revenue stream via sales of copies of a creative work, it may become more difficult to raise money for large projects. Money can still be made in restricted distribution channels in formats that are not accessible in an average home (ie. movie theatres, concerts), but the business models would have to be built around those solely instead of also taking into account sales of copies of the work.
Thus, under such a setup, creating content in a copyable form would be the equivalent of creating a statue for a public area - best to get someone to pay you up front for it, because everyone will be able to benefit from it freely. I don’t know if society will ever shift to this moral standard - but I think if the majority of people agree that this is how it should work, laws will shift accordingly. Personally, I’d like to see this happen, but somehow I don’t think it’s all that likely in the near future.
This is not a new system. The patronage system was the rule throughout all of human history. Artists had to seek the patronage of the rich and it was the rich who largely benefited from art.
It was only when the intellectual property legal infrastructure was put in place that we had an explosion of mass entertainment. It allowed creators to work full time on developing their skill and perfecting their output while making a decent living, and it allowed the mass public to benefit from the art at relatively low cost.
I happen to not pirate games, music, and movies. But god would I love a free pass on papers. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been stalled at work and in my personal life because of paywalls. I hate them.
This is true, but as copyrights have become quite avoidable, it seems reasonable that the prices paid to content creators would drop even further. (They would go from already-sad to pathetisad.)
Let me ask you a question. Will you post your full name, address, social security number, bank account and routing numbers, credit card numbers and place of employment?
If not, why?
How about if someone else posted all the above information? Would that be ok? If not, why? After all, it is information and easily duplicated. There is no reason it shouldn’t be copied or published, as you still have a copy, right?
Of course you wouldn’t post the above information because that information is yours*. You get to decide whom gets that info, with some exceptions like the government.
What about your diary (assuming you had one)? Would it be OK if someone published that against your wishes? Or your medical files? School transcripts and work reviews?
You seem to be stuck on the idea that theft has to deprive access to an item for it to be considered theft. This is, of course, incorrect.
Additionally, there is something that pirating takes away from the IP holder, the right to publishthe work as they see fit.
Slee
*Some personal info, like CC numbers are actually owned by the bank and not the individual.
This kind of information enables other activities which are clearly wrongs–actual thefts, for example. You haven’t proven that copying the numbers themselves would be theft–indeed, I don’t think that’s even theft in a legal sense.