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http://www.techdirt.com/blog/casestudies/ http://www.techdirt.com/blog/casestudies/ <= good source of case studies Also, your complaint about them being 'straw

http://www.techdirt.com/blog/casestudies/ http://www.techdirt.com/blog/casestudies/ <= good source of case studies Also, your complaint about them being 'strawmen' is true, but makes no sense. They are common 'myths, which is to say exaggerations of things people claim everyday. You yourself make several of his 'myths' in your post. > The creative argument in favour of copyright is simply that more useful works get generated and distributed with it than without it. Translation: > Myth: Without the incentive of possibly getting money, nobody will go into artistry and create. > The economic argument is also very simple: the people making those works need to put food on the table. Despite all the rhetoric, nothing is stopping them from doing that in other ways right now, yet relatively few people actually are. Translation: > Myth: With free sharing, nobody will spend money on entertainment. They aren't supposed to be perfect quoted arguments from real live people; just push back on common rhetoric.

Silhouette 14y ago
> The creative argument in favour of copyright is simply that more useful works get generated and distributed with it than without it. Translation: > Myth: Without the incentive of possibly getting money, nobody will go into artistry and create. That isn't even close to the same thing, and neither was your second example. Like Falkvinge, you have turned a relative position (without copyright, less of X would be made) into an absolute (without copyright, none of X would be made). I have never seen anyone, not even the most corrupt media industry lobbyist or the most position-distorting, bought-and-paid-for politician, argue complete absolutes like that. More importantly, I have certainly never seen anyone genuinely interested in changing copyright law for the better promoting such a position. There are alternatives to the mess that is today's implementation of copyright that don't involve killing the entire principle.
- apotheon 14y ago
  > I have never seen anyone . . . I have. I see it all the time, mostly in online discussion. No, I don't maintain a database of every such discussion in which I've participated, tagged with metadata about the fallacies employed in various discussions. > not even the most corrupt media industry lobbyist or the most position-distorting, bought-and-paid-for politician, argue complete absolutes like that. That's because they generally prefer to avoid speaking in absolutes except in specific, rare cases. The implications are obvious, even when their phrasing allows for what they think constitutes plausible deniability. > More importantly, I have certainly never seen anyone genuinely interested in changing copyright law for the better promoting such a position. It's not the people who want to change copyright law for the better that I'm most worried about. It's the people who want to maintain the status quo, plus add more restrictions, that are the biggest problem. Maybe you haven't said such things, and maybe you're interested in improving things in your own misguided way, but (for instance) Chris Dodd is only interested in improving the position of the MPAA -- and I'm pretty sure he has a hell of a lot more sway with Congress than you. > There are alternatives to the mess that is today's implementation of copyright that don't involve killing the entire principle. Yep -- and they're great stepping stones on the way to eliminating prior restraint of the free act of creation.
  - Silhouette 14y ago
    Maybe you haven't said such things, and maybe you're interested in improving things in your own misguided way Well, since you appear to be quite happy putting words under my fingertips, perhaps you'd like to tell me what I think on this subject? I'll give you a free clue to start with: at no point in this discussion have I come anywhere within a hundred miles of defending the likes of Chris Dodd and the xxAA style Big Media lobbying groups, whose attitudes I have opposed consistently up to and including contacting my elected government formally on several occasions. (I'm not in the US, but we have some similarly aggressive copyright advocates here in Europe who are just as dangerous.) My problem with a lot of the more recent comments in this discussion is that it's suddenly turned from talking about the original article to talking about some strawman at the opposite extreme as if those of us who don't agree with Falkvinge are somehow supporting the status quo. The original article takes an IMHO foolish absolute position of completely revoking copyright without proposing any alternative model to promote creation and distribution of new works. However, the alternative of breaking the social bargain the other way is no more palatable to me, with its effectively unending copyright via the Mickey Mouse Protection Act and similar legislation, ever more absurd penalties for hypothetical and often purely economic damages, and so on. There is a middle ground, and what I would have hoped would be a common sense viewpoint: legislative policy on this kind of issue should be driven by clear moral and/or economic principles, and it should be made based on empirical evidence wherever possible. As far as I'm concerned, neither of the sides taking extreme views on copyright is even close to having a decent case based on real data so far. Yep -- and they're great stepping stones on the way to eliminating prior restraint of the free act of creation. I'm not sure what you're trying to argue there, but it looks like it's somewhere between a slippery slope fallacy and an attempt to undermine the existence of any legal system.

Silhouette 14y ago

> The creative argument in favour of copyright is simply that more useful works get generated and distributed with it than without it. Translation: > Myth: Without the incentive of possibly getting money, nobody will go into artistry and create. That isn't even close to the same thing, and neither was your second example. Like Falkvinge, you have turned a relative position (without copyright, less of X would be made) into an absolute (without copyright, none of X would be made). I have never seen anyone, not even the most corrupt media industry lobbyist or the most position-distorting, bought-and-paid-for politician, argue complete absolutes like that. More importantly, I have certainly never seen anyone genuinely interested in changing copyright law for the better promoting such a position. There are alternatives to the mess that is today's implementation of copyright that don't involve killing the entire principle.

apotheon 14y ago
> I have never seen anyone . . . I have. I see it all the time, mostly in online discussion. No, I don't maintain a database of every such discussion in which I've participated, tagged with metadata about the fallacies employed in various discussions. > not even the most corrupt media industry lobbyist or the most position-distorting, bought-and-paid-for politician, argue complete absolutes like that. That's because they generally prefer to avoid speaking in absolutes except in specific, rare cases. The implications are obvious, even when their phrasing allows for what they think constitutes plausible deniability. > More importantly, I have certainly never seen anyone genuinely interested in changing copyright law for the better promoting such a position. It's not the people who want to change copyright law for the better that I'm most worried about. It's the people who want to maintain the status quo, plus add more restrictions, that are the biggest problem. Maybe you haven't said such things, and maybe you're interested in improving things in your own misguided way, but (for instance) Chris Dodd is only interested in improving the position of the MPAA -- and I'm pretty sure he has a hell of a lot more sway with Congress than you. > There are alternatives to the mess that is today's implementation of copyright that don't involve killing the entire principle. Yep -- and they're great stepping stones on the way to eliminating prior restraint of the free act of creation.
- Silhouette 14y ago
  Maybe you haven't said such things, and maybe you're interested in improving things in your own misguided way Well, since you appear to be quite happy putting words under my fingertips, perhaps you'd like to tell me what I think on this subject? I'll give you a free clue to start with: at no point in this discussion have I come anywhere within a hundred miles of defending the likes of Chris Dodd and the xxAA style Big Media lobbying groups, whose attitudes I have opposed consistently up to and including contacting my elected government formally on several occasions. (I'm not in the US, but we have some similarly aggressive copyright advocates here in Europe who are just as dangerous.) My problem with a lot of the more recent comments in this discussion is that it's suddenly turned from talking about the original article to talking about some strawman at the opposite extreme as if those of us who don't agree with Falkvinge are somehow supporting the status quo. The original article takes an IMHO foolish absolute position of completely revoking copyright without proposing any alternative model to promote creation and distribution of new works. However, the alternative of breaking the social bargain the other way is no more palatable to me, with its effectively unending copyright via the Mickey Mouse Protection Act and similar legislation, ever more absurd penalties for hypothetical and often purely economic damages, and so on. There is a middle ground, and what I would have hoped would be a common sense viewpoint: legislative policy on this kind of issue should be driven by clear moral and/or economic principles, and it should be made based on empirical evidence wherever possible. As far as I'm concerned, neither of the sides taking extreme views on copyright is even close to having a decent case based on real data so far. Yep -- and they're great stepping stones on the way to eliminating prior restraint of the free act of creation. I'm not sure what you're trying to argue there, but it looks like it's somewhere between a slippery slope fallacy and an attempt to undermine the existence of any legal system.