4 ms·

Among other things, people are driven by incentives. This includes the fine folks at the MPAA and RIAA. Given that their primary goal is making money, and that

by csallen 14y ago

Among other things, people are driven by incentives. This includes the fine folks at the MPAA and RIAA. Given that their primary goal is making money, and that rampant piracy causes them to lose money (or so they believe), they clearly have a strong incentive to keep piracy in check, as well as any forms of innovation that make piracy easier. If you account for a few other universal psychological factors (cognitive dissonance, fear of loss, human short-sightedness, desire for consistency) as well as situational factors (lots of money with which to hire lawyers and lobbyists), their actions are unsurprising. Expected, even. Does this make them right? Of course not. But that's irrelevant. What matters is that we as human beings comprehend our nature and strive to create systems that account for all of its idiosyncrasies. We can spend all day complaining about the immoral and illogical bad guys, but at the end of the day, human nature is human nature. If a system exists that allows for and incentives bad behavior, people will engage in bad behavior. Period. In this particular conflict, we should be spending our effort fighting for a government that: (a) Understands that no industry has a guaranteed "right" to continued profit in the face of technological/market changes. (b) Affirms and upholds the true purposes of copyright and patent law as originally intended: to protect and encourage innovation for the good of the people, not to make certain people rich. (c) Limits the influence of money on political process. (most importantly imo) Of course, this is all easier said than done. But it's good to at least focus our efforts in the right direction.

Gormo 14y ago
> (c) Limits the influence of money on political process. (most importantly imo) I'm not sure I understand how this relates to the particular problem at hand here, or how it's necessarily consistent with the otherwise clear and valid argument you're making about the nature of incentives and the functioning of institutions as systems. What does "the influence of money on political process" consist of in the status quo, by what means could it be limited, and what new equilibrium do you expect to emerge if and when it is limited?
- csallen 14y ago
  Having lots of money gives you significant advantage in dealing with our government in its current incarnation. This is especially true with the judicial branch (hiring better attorneys, surviving longer trials, etc) and the legislative as well (lobbyists, etc). I think it's pretty obvious that a contest of law should never be decided or even influenced by which party is financially better off. The fact that it can be means the system can be gamed, more or less, by those with spare money to spend. Hence, you see big organizations like the RIAA and MPAA funding massive efforts to get alleged piracy perpetrators "settle or be sued". Should not recipients of these threats feel they have a fair chance to win should the case go to court? And would the RIAA and MPAA engage in such a strategy of their money afforded them no significant advantage? I'll be the first to admit that I have no idea what the fix is. But I would challenge anyone who says it's impossible to design a governmental system that limits/erases the influence of money.
  - andrewflnr 14y ago
    One thing that I think would help would be to make it simpler. It would be nice if you only needed a lawyer for really really complicated cases, and the rest of the time you could trust common sense. Seems like the legislative process could be simpler too. Maybe if it was easier to get up to speed, we could reduce the need for career politicians, making lobbyists work a little harder to gain influence. This is obviously not easy. I don't think you can erase the influence of money; if nothing else, there is a baseline of people who will simply ignore the law.
- bo1024 14y ago
  CISPA PIPA SOPA DMCA takedown abuse Foreign raid on Megaupload Mickey-Mouse copyright extensions huge fines for filesharing I think the list could go on. These are all outside-of-market solutions to the content industry's competition problem. The hope is that if these avenues are no longer available to the MPAA/RIAA, they will be forced to consider collaborating with modern technology solutions that give consumers more freedom, more choices, and more control (because the competitor, piracy, gives people these things already).
  - rayiner 14y ago
    > I think the list could go on. These are all outside-of-market solutions to the content industry's competition problem. In a way they are, but so are the laws against theft, fraud, embezzlement, tortious interference with a contract, you name it. You can argue about what the scope of the "right" here should be, and that is a separate argument, but once a right is established, people should have the protection of the government, within reason, in securing that right. You probably don't oppose the fact that we don't leave protection of more traditional property rights to "market solutions." That would of course be ridiculous because you can't have markets without property rights.
  - Gormo 14y ago
    I'm not sure how any of these examples necessarily reflect money as the root systemic cause of the vulnerability of the political process to being co-opted by factional interests. If money were somehow removed from the equation, surely the same concentration of political power would exist, and the same parties would possess the same interest in directing its use; it doesn't seem that itself is a source of influence, but just a means employed in applying that influence. So how does removing money from the politics actually prevent the MPAA, RIAA, and other cartels from using politics as a means to alter market conditions in their favor? I think we might need significantly more fundamental reforms; trying to restrict the role of money in politics, with all else being equal, might even backfire, and cause something even more concerning than money to become the dominant medium for influencing politics.
shmerl 14y ago
I think their desire for money is superseded by their desire for control. Since their actions look more like pushing some dictator style agenda.

by csallen 14y ago

Gormo 14y ago

> (c) Limits the influence of money on political process. (most importantly imo) I'm not sure I understand how this relates to the particular problem at hand here, or how it's necessarily consistent with the otherwise clear and valid argument you're making about the nature of incentives and the functioning of institutions as systems. What does "the influence of money on political process" consist of in the status quo, by what means could it be limited, and what new equilibrium do you expect to emerge if and when it is limited?

csallen 14y ago
Having lots of money gives you significant advantage in dealing with our government in its current incarnation. This is especially true with the judicial branch (hiring better attorneys, surviving longer trials, etc) and the legislative as well (lobbyists, etc). I think it's pretty obvious that a contest of law should never be decided or even influenced by which party is financially better off. The fact that it can be means the system can be gamed, more or less, by those with spare money to spend. Hence, you see big organizations like the RIAA and MPAA funding massive efforts to get alleged piracy perpetrators "settle or be sued". Should not recipients of these threats feel they have a fair chance to win should the case go to court? And would the RIAA and MPAA engage in such a strategy of their money afforded them no significant advantage? I'll be the first to admit that I have no idea what the fix is. But I would challenge anyone who says it's impossible to design a governmental system that limits/erases the influence of money.
- andrewflnr 14y ago
  One thing that I think would help would be to make it simpler. It would be nice if you only needed a lawyer for really really complicated cases, and the rest of the time you could trust common sense. Seems like the legislative process could be simpler too. Maybe if it was easier to get up to speed, we could reduce the need for career politicians, making lobbyists work a little harder to gain influence. This is obviously not easy. I don't think you can erase the influence of money; if nothing else, there is a baseline of people who will simply ignore the law.
bo1024 14y ago
CISPA PIPA SOPA DMCA takedown abuse Foreign raid on Megaupload Mickey-Mouse copyright extensions huge fines for filesharing I think the list could go on. These are all outside-of-market solutions to the content industry's competition problem. The hope is that if these avenues are no longer available to the MPAA/RIAA, they will be forced to consider collaborating with modern technology solutions that give consumers more freedom, more choices, and more control (because the competitor, piracy, gives people these things already).
- rayiner 14y ago
  > I think the list could go on. These are all outside-of-market solutions to the content industry's competition problem. In a way they are, but so are the laws against theft, fraud, embezzlement, tortious interference with a contract, you name it. You can argue about what the scope of the "right" here should be, and that is a separate argument, but once a right is established, people should have the protection of the government, within reason, in securing that right. You probably don't oppose the fact that we don't leave protection of more traditional property rights to "market solutions." That would of course be ridiculous because you can't have markets without property rights.
- Gormo 14y ago
  I'm not sure how any of these examples necessarily reflect money as the root systemic cause of the vulnerability of the political process to being co-opted by factional interests. If money were somehow removed from the equation, surely the same concentration of political power would exist, and the same parties would possess the same interest in directing its use; it doesn't seem that itself is a source of influence, but just a means employed in applying that influence. So how does removing money from the politics actually prevent the MPAA, RIAA, and other cartels from using politics as a means to alter market conditions in their favor? I think we might need significantly more fundamental reforms; trying to restrict the role of money in politics, with all else being equal, might even backfire, and cause something even more concerning than money to become the dominant medium for influencing politics.

shmerl 14y ago

I think their desire for money is superseded by their desire for control. Since their actions look more like pushing some dictator style agenda.