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OK, I just don't think that the difficulty of enforcing certain legal contracts, should be conflated with a public good problem. It's fundamentally a different
by curi 19y ago
OK, I just don't think that the difficulty of enforcing certain legal contracts, should be conflated with a public good problem. It's fundamentally a different kind of issue.
Music downloaders are not free riders. They've broken the law (at least the uploader has clearly broken his contract with the artist not to do this). In a classic public good case, like the flood valley and dam, the difficulty is that people who own property in the valley, and break no laws by continuing to farm there, benefit from the flood control that the dam owner can't prevent from affecting their property.
Which is only a problem because it gives them an incentive to get their neighbors to pay for the dam, while not doing so themselves.
- davidw 19y agoSure, good point, but consider that the IP laws that exist in the first place are an attempt to make property out of something where 'property' doesn't really exist in the physical sense. In the case of a book or a song in the era of records, it was a pretty good solution, as enforceable property rights were a pretty good way of encouraging people to produce material that even then could be copied without too much trouble. These days though, that compromise seems to be creaking under the strain of new technology, and is due for a revision. I'm not sure what the answers are, but I still like the idea of looking at it as a compromise between producers and consumers that should give something to each one. Giving nothing to the producers will discourage production of those kinds of goods. Give too much power to the producers in an age where copying is so easy means using fairly heavy-handed and invasive government power to enforce their rights.
- gnaritas 19y agoAs the music industry is now learning... music is a service, not a product. Its short run as a product (records, tapes, CDs) was an artificial creation that still made some sense when bound to physical media (a product). No one really has a good solution yet, but it seems that information really doesn't like being a product.
- rms 19y agoOne of these days, information is going to be free, I promise you.
- bayareaguy 19y agoIf I ever get a pet, I'm going to name it 'information' just so you can keep your promise.
- yters 19y agoInformation is inherently free, dissemination isn't.
- rms 19y agoOne of these days information dissemination is going to be free, I promise you. That day is today, actually. http://thepiratebay.org/ http://thepiratebay.org/
- yters 19y agoNo, dissemination always consumes resources. I'm not just talking about the resources for sharing files, which are minimal. The real resources consumed are time and energy creating/discovering the information in the first place and putting it in a format that is usable. That's why people need some kind of guaranteed reimbursement for their discoveries and limited IP is a good idea.
- 19y ago
- greendestiny 19y agoActually copyright exists so that producers don't have to simply rely on contracts, and so that the people doing the copying have breached law and not just the person who breached their contract. The alternative is restricting access to copyrighted material via harsh contracts and supervised access. As a copyright producer of both music and software I really feel copyright protection is moral and just. The damages awarded for copyright infringement for personal use are clearly ridiculous and should be seriously limited. Also I think both copyrights and patents terms should be reduced and the originality threshold for patents has to be increased. Each patent term should be determined separately with reference to how expensive something has been to bring to market and how novel it is.
- apotheon 19y agoYour argument in favor of copyright amounts to "As someone who benefits from foo, I support it," or (rearranged slightly) "I support foo because I benefit from it."
- greendestiny 19y agoNo that's just my context. The extremely abridged version of my argument in that comment is that the alternative to copyright law is some version of contract law and controlled access. You can't force producers to freely release their work, and I doubt you want to stop people entering into contracts with each other.
- davidw 19y agoIf copyrights are a proper balance, everyone benefits, because more things are created. Without the ability to at least make a living by selling IP, lots of things we currently enjoy/find useful might not exist. That of course is not to say that the balance is a good one right now, still, it's not just the producers that benefit, it's the public who gets access to things the producer creates because he/she has a means to make some money from it.
- Retric 19y ago
- apotheon 19y agoThe uploader hasn't breached a contract under the current system. Copyright law makes contractual agreement unnecessary to the copyright holder. In essence, contractual terms are forced on everyone within the jurisdiction of copyright law regardless of any agreement by the parties to this so-called contract other than the copyright holder. In fact, even the copyright holder hasn't had a chance to determine whether or not agreeing to contractual terms is a good idea: he or she must explicitly declare relinquishment of "contractual" benefits to refuse the contract's terms, and the only means for negotiation of stronger benefits is a lawsuit. There are not contracts that stand up in court under those circumstances. There clearly is no real contract here -- where "contract" assumes "agreement".