4 ms·

> The root cause of SOPA is a culture of piracy and a lack of participation by leaders in technology to develop better enforcement regulations. There's a tacit

by jey 15y ago

> The root cause of SOPA is a culture of piracy and a lack of participation by leaders in technology to develop better enforcement regulations. There's a tacit assumption in your post that copyright is still a valid notion that should be protected. That's not at all clear, and society should really re-examine the basic assumptions behind copyright. It's possible that copyright just doesn't make sense anymore and the business models that rely on copyright monopolies should just be allowed to die. I'm certainly open to being wrong. What are some valuable things that would be lost without decent replacements if we abolished copyright monopolies?

earbitscom 15y ago
I think it will detract from the discussion to get into whether or not copyright should be protected. I think it's safe to say, and I hope you'll concede that, we're a long way away from abolishing copyright. We're in a battle right now about whether Internet free speech is more important than copyright, so suffice it to say that there's going to be even less support for the idea that copyright isn't important at all. With that in mind, let's assume we're looking at a decade or more before copyright would be abolished. During that time, companies will have a strong argument for why a law should be enforced. My point is that those people are going to keep proposing legislation that protects their interests. We can either keep risking one of those overreaching bills passing and threatening things that are actually important to us, or we can work together to address piracy, something that we'd be foolish to defend over our other freedoms. I'd like to see leaders in technology speak out against piracy and for the rights of content creators in the same breath as they say this is not the legislation we need. You're going to get more support from media if you acknowledge that there is a serious problem and offer to help address it than if all they ever see from the tech community are comments in forums about how information should be free and we should just abolish copyright. If that's what they're hearing, they're just going to keep pushing for the legislation they want and ignore the opinions of others.
tptacek 15y ago
Books.
- jey 15y ago
  Empirically doesn't seem to be true, since high-quality fiction and non-fiction is currently produced even when there isn't a profit motive. There's still ways to make money from writing, e.g. by asking people to give donations totalling a certain amount before releasing the next chapter, etc.
  - earbitscom 15y ago
    The number of works being written for no financial gain and the number of people who have successfully made those models work for them combine to be a tiny fraction of the regular commercial market for books. If you want real data, survey a couple thousand professional authors at random and ask them if they would still write if they knew they had no copyright protection and may have to put together some innovative new release schedule on a per chapter basis just to have any chance of making some money for their work.
    - jey 15y ago
      This is entirely backwards looking; of course the people who benefit from the current system will want to keep it in place. The real question is whether others would step in if everyone who is currently writing books suddenly just quit. In practice the authors wouldn't have to carry all the load for the business model innovation; there would be third parties that figure it out and play a role analogous to the role currently played by publishers, e.g. there could be a company similar to kickstarter dedicated to helping authors fund their projects. We're in early days right now, so the old models still do have a large market share, but we need to be forward-looking and consider the long-run effects.
      - earbitscom 15y ago
        No, the real question we should be asking is whether the quality of output will be equivalent or better. Replacing authors who were able to make writing their life with a bunch of part time hobbyists isn't the same.

by jey 15y ago

earbitscom 15y ago

I think it will detract from the discussion to get into whether or not copyright should be protected. I think it's safe to say, and I hope you'll concede that, we're a long way away from abolishing copyright. We're in a battle right now about whether Internet free speech is more important than copyright, so suffice it to say that there's going to be even less support for the idea that copyright isn't important at all. With that in mind, let's assume we're looking at a decade or more before copyright would be abolished. During that time, companies will have a strong argument for why a law should be enforced. My point is that those people are going to keep proposing legislation that protects their interests. We can either keep risking one of those overreaching bills passing and threatening things that are actually important to us, or we can work together to address piracy, something that we'd be foolish to defend over our other freedoms. I'd like to see leaders in technology speak out against piracy and for the rights of content creators in the same breath as they say this is not the legislation we need. You're going to get more support from media if you acknowledge that there is a serious problem and offer to help address it than if all they ever see from the tech community are comments in forums about how information should be free and we should just abolish copyright. If that's what they're hearing, they're just going to keep pushing for the legislation they want and ignore the opinions of others.

tptacek 15y ago

Books.

jey 15y ago
Empirically doesn't seem to be true, since high-quality fiction and non-fiction is currently produced even when there isn't a profit motive. There's still ways to make money from writing, e.g. by asking people to give donations totalling a certain amount before releasing the next chapter, etc.
- earbitscom 15y ago
  The number of works being written for no financial gain and the number of people who have successfully made those models work for them combine to be a tiny fraction of the regular commercial market for books. If you want real data, survey a couple thousand professional authors at random and ask them if they would still write if they knew they had no copyright protection and may have to put together some innovative new release schedule on a per chapter basis just to have any chance of making some money for their work.
  - jey 15y ago
    This is entirely backwards looking; of course the people who benefit from the current system will want to keep it in place. The real question is whether others would step in if everyone who is currently writing books suddenly just quit. In practice the authors wouldn't have to carry all the load for the business model innovation; there would be third parties that figure it out and play a role analogous to the role currently played by publishers, e.g. there could be a company similar to kickstarter dedicated to helping authors fund their projects. We're in early days right now, so the old models still do have a large market share, but we need to be forward-looking and consider the long-run effects.
    - earbitscom 15y ago
      No, the real question we should be asking is whether the quality of output will be equivalent or better. Replacing authors who were able to make writing their life with a bunch of part time hobbyists isn't the same.