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It's easy to sit on the fence until you have to get specific. Everything you've said here is reasonable. Politician style reasonable. All the hard decisions tha

It's easy to sit on the fence until you have to get specific. Everything you've said here is reasonable. Politician style reasonable. All the hard decisions that would need to be made to do anything in practice are covered by "educate the second" and "perhaps there needs to be a conversation". In my opinion, you are wrong in expecting that these few large index/hosting sites or "worst offenders" will continue to be the bulk of the infringing traffic. We are moving away from that very quickly already.

Silhouette 14y ago
There is, as you seem to realise to some extent, exactly one logical conclusion to the everyone-does-it, distributed-everything world you describe: prohibit the very act of conveying digital information in encrypted form, and require the infrastructure providers to help with identifying and prosecuting those who break the law. Personally, I don't think that would be a very nice world to live in. That means effort has to be put into promoting legitimate alternatives and educating people about why these issues matter. This has been done before, many times, with driving offences for example. Not so long ago, you could go past a pub at lunchtime and find plenty of obviously impaired people cheerfully getting into their cars to drive back to the office. Today, drunk-driving is socially unacceptable, licensed establishments run promotions for designated drivers, and police action is relatively rare because it is mostly unnecessary. This was achieved almost entirely through education, and in particular demonstrating the real consequences of the illegal act that do affect real people rather than allowing the perceptions of a "victimless crime" or "fighting the system" to continue unchallenged. I see no reason a serious, credible campaign could not successfully explain that copyright is there to support the artists who create the works we want to enjoy and isn't just about lining the pockets of big businesses who have been price gouging since forever. If the laws were also changed to bring copyright terms back to sanity and those big businesses suffered a few high profile legal defeats over their track record of anti-competitive behaviour at the same time, a lot of good might result. [Edit: To be clear, I'm not saying that this would completely eliminate all illegal copying. However, as I've just posted separately, I think it leads to a reasonable compromise that gives sensible options to people who just want to enjoy creative works and allows rightsholders to chase down large-scale infringement effectively without having to prohibit personal encrypted communications.]
- freshhawk 14y ago
  > exactly one logical conclusion to the everyone-does-it, distributed-everything world you describe: prohibit the very act of conveying digital information in encrypted form, and require the infrastructure providers to help with identifying and prosecuting those who break the law There is another logical conclusion: accept that since information is now easily shared that those who made their living by controlling the act of copying will be out of business soon. Just like the canonical example of horse breeders and buggy makers being put out of business by the automobile. Like when the guild system collapsed and you could decide to try to earn a living as a blacksmith or carpenter without having to pay and get permission from the local guild. These transitions aren't pretty, jobs are lost, industries collapse, but historically it has always turned out to be a necessary growing pain while something better has emerged. I certainly have a "the internet is one of great things humanity has done" bias but I still don't believe that this is an unrealistic vision. I actually find it much more likely that artists will find a way to be paid and will adapt to a free exchange of bits than that we will find some good way to protect speech and freedom while still policing copyright. In that case you will always have powerful copyright interests with financial interests aligned against the advancement of an open internet. Combine that with needing to run a large scale education campaign the likes of anti-smoking or anti-drunk driving (that, because of the reputation of the copyright holders and a generation who things music is free, is getting harder every day). I see the sense in your version, and it's not crazy. I just don't think we can pull it off. What we can do, since it's been done many times before, is let artists adapt to new technology and find a new business model. And as 3D printers get better and better this is certainly a problem that's going to keep expanding.
  - Silhouette 14y ago
    There is another logical conclusion: accept that since information is now easily shared that those who made their living by controlling the act of copying will be out of business soon. The trouble is that the people who make their living that way aren't just working for the big guys any more. There are little guys out there, whose work can be ripped off just as easily and who suffer public prejudice that was earned by the abusive policies of the big guys over the years, yet who have none of the advantages of the big guys to make up for it. When you put these people out of business, the works you value don't get made any more, because they get other jobs so they can have food to eat and put a roof over their family's heads. Like when the guild system collapsed and you could decide to try to earn a living as a blacksmith or carpenter without having to pay and get permission from the local guild. The difference in this case is that you're not just bringing down the guild, you're bringing down the blacksmith and the carpenter as well. I actually find it much more likely that artists will find a way to be paid and will adapt to a free exchange of bits than that we will find some good way to protect speech and freedom while still policing copyright. Perhaps you're right, and I'll be the first to support abolishing copyright if it turns out that there are better ways to incentivise artists without the same social cost. But the fact is that nothing is stopping people from using alternative business models today if they provide a better incentive than copyright, and almost no-one does. There have been a few experiments with things like choose-your-own pricing, but they have had highly variable success rates. Almost all of the really successful projects were made by artists whose reputation was already built the old-fashioned way. There are a few experiments with things like Kickstarter today, and I wish them luck too. However, for now they consider a $1,000,000 project a huge success, and it remains to be seen how many of these projects actually produce the kind of results that the "investors" expect and how sustainable the model might become. Meanwhile, to put that in perspective, the budget for Batman: The Dark Knight Rises is reported to have been $250,000,000, and Star Wars: The Old Republic allegedly comes in around $200,000,000. No small, independent studio can build projects on that scale anyway, and while a MMORPG like SW:TOR has a certain natural barrier to being ripped off, the same can't be said for other genres of big budget game. I see the sense in your version, and it's not crazy. I just don't think we can pull it off. What we can do, since it's been done many times before, is let artists adapt to new technology and find a new business model. The trouble is, if we don't pull it off, those new business models are going to be things like always-online DRM schemes and locked-down hardware and walled garden app stores. Exactly none of these things ultimately results in better experiences for the public. They just happen to have defensible bottom lines for the businesses.

Silhouette 14y ago

There is, as you seem to realise to some extent, exactly one logical conclusion to the everyone-does-it, distributed-everything world you describe: prohibit the very act of conveying digital information in encrypted form, and require the infrastructure providers to help with identifying and prosecuting those who break the law. Personally, I don't think that would be a very nice world to live in. That means effort has to be put into promoting legitimate alternatives and educating people about why these issues matter. This has been done before, many times, with driving offences for example. Not so long ago, you could go past a pub at lunchtime and find plenty of obviously impaired people cheerfully getting into their cars to drive back to the office. Today, drunk-driving is socially unacceptable, licensed establishments run promotions for designated drivers, and police action is relatively rare because it is mostly unnecessary. This was achieved almost entirely through education, and in particular demonstrating the real consequences of the illegal act that do affect real people rather than allowing the perceptions of a "victimless crime" or "fighting the system" to continue unchallenged. I see no reason a serious, credible campaign could not successfully explain that copyright is there to support the artists who create the works we want to enjoy and isn't just about lining the pockets of big businesses who have been price gouging since forever. If the laws were also changed to bring copyright terms back to sanity and those big businesses suffered a few high profile legal defeats over their track record of anti-competitive behaviour at the same time, a lot of good might result. [Edit: To be clear, I'm not saying that this would completely eliminate all illegal copying. However, as I've just posted separately, I think it leads to a reasonable compromise that gives sensible options to people who just want to enjoy creative works and allows rightsholders to chase down large-scale infringement effectively without having to prohibit personal encrypted communications.]

freshhawk 14y ago
> exactly one logical conclusion to the everyone-does-it, distributed-everything world you describe: prohibit the very act of conveying digital information in encrypted form, and require the infrastructure providers to help with identifying and prosecuting those who break the law There is another logical conclusion: accept that since information is now easily shared that those who made their living by controlling the act of copying will be out of business soon. Just like the canonical example of horse breeders and buggy makers being put out of business by the automobile. Like when the guild system collapsed and you could decide to try to earn a living as a blacksmith or carpenter without having to pay and get permission from the local guild. These transitions aren't pretty, jobs are lost, industries collapse, but historically it has always turned out to be a necessary growing pain while something better has emerged. I certainly have a "the internet is one of great things humanity has done" bias but I still don't believe that this is an unrealistic vision. I actually find it much more likely that artists will find a way to be paid and will adapt to a free exchange of bits than that we will find some good way to protect speech and freedom while still policing copyright. In that case you will always have powerful copyright interests with financial interests aligned against the advancement of an open internet. Combine that with needing to run a large scale education campaign the likes of anti-smoking or anti-drunk driving (that, because of the reputation of the copyright holders and a generation who things music is free, is getting harder every day). I see the sense in your version, and it's not crazy. I just don't think we can pull it off. What we can do, since it's been done many times before, is let artists adapt to new technology and find a new business model. And as 3D printers get better and better this is certainly a problem that's going to keep expanding.
- Silhouette 14y ago
  There is another logical conclusion: accept that since information is now easily shared that those who made their living by controlling the act of copying will be out of business soon. The trouble is that the people who make their living that way aren't just working for the big guys any more. There are little guys out there, whose work can be ripped off just as easily and who suffer public prejudice that was earned by the abusive policies of the big guys over the years, yet who have none of the advantages of the big guys to make up for it. When you put these people out of business, the works you value don't get made any more, because they get other jobs so they can have food to eat and put a roof over their family's heads. Like when the guild system collapsed and you could decide to try to earn a living as a blacksmith or carpenter without having to pay and get permission from the local guild. The difference in this case is that you're not just bringing down the guild, you're bringing down the blacksmith and the carpenter as well. I actually find it much more likely that artists will find a way to be paid and will adapt to a free exchange of bits than that we will find some good way to protect speech and freedom while still policing copyright. Perhaps you're right, and I'll be the first to support abolishing copyright if it turns out that there are better ways to incentivise artists without the same social cost. But the fact is that nothing is stopping people from using alternative business models today if they provide a better incentive than copyright, and almost no-one does. There have been a few experiments with things like choose-your-own pricing, but they have had highly variable success rates. Almost all of the really successful projects were made by artists whose reputation was already built the old-fashioned way. There are a few experiments with things like Kickstarter today, and I wish them luck too. However, for now they consider a $1,000,000 project a huge success, and it remains to be seen how many of these projects actually produce the kind of results that the "investors" expect and how sustainable the model might become. Meanwhile, to put that in perspective, the budget for Batman: The Dark Knight Rises is reported to have been $250,000,000, and Star Wars: The Old Republic allegedly comes in around $200,000,000. No small, independent studio can build projects on that scale anyway, and while a MMORPG like SW:TOR has a certain natural barrier to being ripped off, the same can't be said for other genres of big budget game. I see the sense in your version, and it's not crazy. I just don't think we can pull it off. What we can do, since it's been done many times before, is let artists adapt to new technology and find a new business model. The trouble is, if we don't pull it off, those new business models are going to be things like always-online DRM schemes and locked-down hardware and walled garden app stores. Exactly none of these things ultimately results in better experiences for the public. They just happen to have defensible bottom lines for the businesses.