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> But the only thing obligating them to do so in an absolute sense is copyright, and the moral compass of great swaths of the general public seems to have evolv
by aes256 14y ago
> But the only thing obligating them to do so in an absolute sense is copyright, and the moral compass of great swaths of the general public seems to have evolved quite decisively beyond it, and as problematic as that is for the current model of creative business I doubt it will change any time soon.
I wouldn't be so sure respect for intellectual property was ever all that widespread.
We've simply transitioned from a state in which it was difficult to 'disrespect' intellectual property, to one in which it couldn't be easier.
I'm sure if, in the past, people could have costlessly and near-instantly duplicated and shared vinyl records, cassettes, etc. people would have done it in similarly large numbers as they do today.
- betterunix 14y agoThat is because prior to the widespread availability of the Internet and of PCs, only a tiny minority of people were ever expected to think about copyrights. Nobody was being sued for copying pages from a book using their pen. Supposedly, we expect people who have no legal background or training at all to understand a legal issue that is full of nuances and subtleties. Except that in reality, nobody expects people to be thinking about that, even the RIAA and MPAA, which is why restriction systems are being deployed all over the place. Everyone knows that the average American citizen never cared about copyrights and was only buying from "legitimate" sources because there was no alternative.