7 ms·

A Tipping Point Against The Copyright Monopoly Is A Lot Closer Than You Think

131 points by Lightning 13y ago

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
davidw 13y ago
I favor reforming copyright, patents, and so on, but this article makes a horrible case for it, and is so full of errors and sillyness that it's really just bad propaganda, rather than a serious argument. > failure of its industrial capacity in the mid-1970 Manufacturing continues to grow in the US. What has declined are the number of people employed in that sector, just as the number of farmers once declined. > United States can have effective trade sanctions against Cuba 40+ years of trade sanctions and who is still in power? I would not call that effective. And then the main part of the article, that if the Pirate Party gets 5% in Germany, they're going to "start dismantling the atrocious copyright and patent monopolies, worldwide." I don't think so: Germans invent a lot of stuff too, write books, software, compose music, make movies, and so on, and are not going to throw out Intellectual Property as a means of promoting those activities, lock, stock, and barrel. Hopefully some reform of the system is possible, but to be effective, this area of law is always going to be something of a messy compromise.
- hetman 13y ago
  I think he meant effective economically, not necessarily politically.
  - davidw 13y ago
    It's difficult to tease out the effects of a failed economic system from the sanctions. The sanctions, politically, are probably one of the things that help prop up the Castros, as they can place all the blame for their problems on the sanctions, rather than a political and economic system that does not work.
- igravious 13y ago
  > Manufacturing continues to grow in the US. What has declined are the number of people employed in that sector, just as the number of farmers once declined. You equate one type of growth with success. Given that we are living through a period of relatively high unemployment and social inequity in the US and Europe the onus is on you to explain why you equate growth with success. Maybe this type of growth isn't politically/economically/environmentally stable? > 40+ years of trade sanctions and who is still in power? I would not call that effective. Again, what is your measure? You seem to be measuring the wrong thing.For example, with the current sanctions against Iran[1] the Office of Foreign Assets Control[2] aims to do what? You claim it would be to effect political change in Iran. Regime change. In what other context have we heard this expression used? The Military overthrow of Saddam in Iraq. With this view economic sanctions are used in lieu of military force. These sanctions seem to hurt the average man, woman and child on the street however causing hardship and misery. Saddam was still in power when we rolled in. Mugabe is. The Ayatollahs in Iran are still going strong. Fidel appears to be handing power over to Raúl. So by your reckoning they have been effective nowhere. So why still use them? To me they look a lot like collective punishment. > I don't think so: Germans invent a lot of stuff too, write books, software, compose music, make movies, and so on, and are not going to throw out Intellectual Property as a means of promoting those activities, lock, stock, and barrel. Dismantle is perhaps too strong, too rhetorically strident. Reform would be better, yes - you use the term yourself. Remember copyright has only been around to a serious extent† since the Queen Anne statute[3] of 1710. Patents are younger still. The tide has flowed one way so far, maybe it's time to flow the other. The current state of affairs seems to favour the few of the multitude. > bad propaganda These guys were elected to European Parliament, I know we all have a rather dim view of politicians but somebody seems to be buying their PR. :) --- † Excluding a judgment in the 6th century in Celtic Brehon law enunciated thus, “As to every Cow its Calf, so to every Book its Copy" [1] http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/Programs/Documents/iran.pdf http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/Programs/D... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Foreign_Assets_Control http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Foreign_Assets_Contro... [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statute_of_Anne http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statute_of_Anne
  - davidw 13y ago
    Manufacturing: I was stating that his assertion was wrong, nothing more than that. Trade sanctions: I'm having difficulty following your train of thought, but my point was that the Castros are still in power, so the sanctions have not worked, contrary to his assertion that they were 'effective'. > The current state of affairs seems to favour the few of the multitude. The number of people creating stuff is likely to always be lower than the number of those who consume. The whole point of the system is to encourage that production by giving the creators a means to extract some money from the consumers - thus ensuring a supply of things to consume. I agree that the balance is currently too far in favor of producers.
- darkarmani 13y ago
  > but to be effective, this area of law is always going to be something of a messy compromise. I wouldn't call infinite copyright a compromise. When is the last time you saw copyright expire on a work of art?
  - davidw 13y ago
    Did you see the part where I wrote that it needs reforming? That's exactly what I'm referring to. This sums up my point of view pretty well: http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2012/09/patent-theory-on-the-back-of-a-napkin.html http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2012/09/pat...
benologist 13y ago
Hopefully a tipping point against Falkvinge's endless rhetoric is closer than I think.
dnautics 13y ago
The underestimation of political change in the US is one of the bigger errors. There is shallow but bipartisan support for this - but the interesting dynamic is that it's actually the 'hardcore activists' in both parties for an end to IP in general. Important political figures, too, have opined on the matter, for example Richard Posner, a conservative/libertarian judge sitting fairly high on the federal bench.
- rayiner 13y ago
  Posner has not called for an end to IP, mind you. He's called for reducing patent terms and narrowing the scope of patentability.
  - dnautics 13y ago
    he has openly speculated if IP is necessary at all (except for pharmaceuticals)
chakalakasp 13y ago
It's a bit disingenuous to pretend that the EU acts as a whole and thus can be considered a single economy. A Cyprus Euro is not a German Euro. If Estonia decides to throw away the Berne Convention and legally allow wholesale piracy, the Germans ^H^H^H^H^H^H^H EU will happily throw them under the bus. Happy fun time with America is worth a lot more than indulging some minor political party's crazy sauce in some inconsequential EU state.
- vidarh 13y ago
  Which is presumably why his article is talking about what it will take to achieve majority support within the EU, and focusing on Germany as way of increasing support on EU Commission level, rather than talking about "indulging some minor political party's crazy sauce in some inconsequential EU state".
  - chakalakasp 13y ago
    The thing is, Germany doesn't just manufacture things, they design them as well. It seems unlikely to me that they would adopt a stance on IP that ran counter to their own interests. Honestly, it's hard for me to read TorrentFreak articles, because they always seem to come from the assumed standpoint that normal people want IP to go away and that only oppressive corporations with outdated and unfair business models want to keep it. This is far from the truth.
adventured 13y ago
"Therefore, the United States cannot execute trade sanctions against Europe without getting hurt more itself." I kind of wish this argument were plausible, sadly it's not even remotely accurate (as another post noted). First, the US would apply leverage on an individual basis, rather than against the whole of Europe or EU, and end up accomplishing the desired outcome by fracturing unity. Second, the US has the global reserve currency. It's a huge economic influence multiplier while it lasts. Third, the US depends a lot more on Mexico, Canada, Japan and China than it does the European Union, across the board economically. The poor assumption being made is that somehow the US and the EU trade with each other equally (such that a sanction war would be based on total GDP), but that's not even remotely true. China is the EU's biggest trading partner. The US is still the world's largest manufacturer (not the largest exporter of course). The US also can be completely independent in regards to natural resources, which is something the European Union can't do any time soon (requiring for example Russia's natural gas and oil). Europe has no singular political command or currency. As such it's not difficult for the US to separate it into pieces leverage wise. Germany is the only major power in the EU that can afford to stand against the US financially. If the Fed wants to it can tip France or Italy into recessions at any time by applying pressure on their bonds, and the UK simply isn't going to go against the US. Germany would have to take a risky balls on the table stand and hope a lot of other nations joined them.
iSnow 13y ago
Well, there is currently zero chance of the Pirate Party winning seats in the fall election in Germany and even less (yes I know) chance to become king-maker.
- junto 13y ago
  I wouldn't say that it is impossible. I'm witnessing a large advertising campaign promoting the Piratenpartei in my part of Germany. However, I do believe that Falkvinge is naive. Although his theory (I believe) seems sound, his tipping point is way further away than he thinks. The reality is that the tipping point lies with the younger generation. The older generation are (in the main), a completely lost cause. They don't get it and they don't want to. They have other concerns; support for their children, jobs, health, pensions and social services. The Piratenpartei need to have a multi-faceted offering to encourage more older people to vote for them. In the long term, the younger generation who have a concern and understanding of privacy concerns are the key. However, (and this is a really important point), the next generation AFTER them won't get it. They will have grown up in a society where (for example) privacy is not an natural right. They will be ingrained into a habit of downloading via iTunes, Amazon and Google. They won't know any different. They are embedded in their world of Facebook and iPhones. They only know a narrow internet world, that is controlled by a few large corporations. Therefore the Piratenpartei have a narrow window of time in which to lodge a foot in the Bundestag. They need to gain enough popular support from the generation who grew up in a world where (briefly) the pay walls didn't exist, and things were free. The latter generation are quite possibly a lost cause.
  - VMG 13y ago
    > They need to gain enough popular support from the generation who grew up in a world where (briefly) the pay walls didn't exist, and things were free You do understand that Facebook and Google ARE free, and they are because they can show targeted ads? > They are embedded in their world of Facebook and iPhones. They only know a narrow internet world, that is controlled by a few large corporations. They seem to prefer this world to BBSes and Geocities. Who am I to tell them what kind of internet they should use?
nohuck13 13y ago
Falkvinge must be a mainstream politician now. He's pandering to the base with ad hominems while foregoing the opportunity to make an intellectual case :) I want to try and understand. On the WTO "having moved ahead from that failure with disguising lopsided rent-seeking schemes as “free trade agreements”. The first of these was the WTO" He seems to think his audience will just know what this means. I admit I don't have WTO objections filed away in my (libertarian-leaning) subconscious under "obviously true, no need for explanation." According to Wikipedia [1], objections include "-Rich countries are able to maintain high import duties and quotas in certain products, blocking imports from developing countries (e.g. clothing); -The increase in non-tariff barriers such as anti-dumping measures allowed against developing countries; -The maintenance of high protection of agriculture in developed countries while developing ones are pressed to open their markets; -Many developing countries do not have the capacity to follow the negotiations and participate actively in the Uruguay Round" These actually seems like quite legitimate political gripes to me, and they fit with what I know. There are also structural reasons people object to the neoliberal opening of markets, in a big bang release [Martin Khor, 2] "The problem in trade liberalisation is that a country can control how fast to liberalise its imports (and thus increase the inflow of products) but cannot determine by itself how fast its exports grow. Export growth partly depends on the prices of the existing exported products (and developing countries have suffered from serious declines in their tenns of trade) and also on having or developing the infrastructure, human and enterprise capacity for new exports (which is a longterm process and not easily achieved)." So that's at least an interesting and intelligible set of claims that one can debate with empirical evidence. I don't know what I conclude from them, but its too bad the rhetoric tends to be so substance-free given how important it is. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_World_Trade_Organization http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_World_Trade_Or... [2] http://www.twnside.org.sg/title/davos2-cn.htm http://www.twnside.org.sg/title/davos2-cn.htm Edit: formatting
curiouscats 13y ago
I wish the turning point were close but I don't think it is. As other comments note he doesn't make a good case for his claim. I am surprised how little other countries have cared how easily the USA State Department and Trade representatives have been able to dictate terms to their politicians. It seems to me for a tipping point to occur other countries have to punish politicians for being toadies to the USA's dictates. Until that happens I don't hold out much hope. I would love it for the USA to turn against the copyright monopolists but I think they have bought a significant majority of our politicians and we have shown no interest in throwing out the politicians doing favors for those that have paid them well.
PhasmaFelis 13y ago
He's probably wrong, but I hope he's not.
rayiner 13y ago
What sticks in my craw is Falkvinge's continually disingenuous use of the word "monopoly." Owning and asserting a copyright does not make you a monopolist any more than owning a beach house on the Oregon coast makes you one. All property rights are monopolies. That does not mean owners of property rights are monopolists. Concretely: nobody is preventing someone from producing the next summer blockbuster and distributing it for free on BitTorrent, just as nobody is preventing you from building a beach house on the Oregon coast and letting anyone stay over. I think there is zero potential for significantly eroding copyright rights, and a bunch of young people who don't produce anything themselves certainly won't be the impetus for change. At the most basic level, copyright strikes a cord with people: if I make something, I should own it and be able to control it. Young people are willing to play fast and loose with those property rights, as they always have (cutting through people's yards, etc) but that doesn't signal the impending downfall of property rights as a system.
- pessimizer 13y ago
  If your owning a beach house in Oregon prevents me from building one just like it in Hawaii, it's a monopoly too.
  - rayiner 13y ago
    You're quite welcome to make a movie "just like" Transformers 3. But that's not what Falkvinge is advocating for. He's not advocating for your right to "create" or "build". He's advocating "copying", "appropriating", "using" the work of others without compensating them.
    - randallsquared 13y ago
      Copying is creation. It's certainly a lot less work than the creation of the first copy was, but after a copy operation, there is indeed another movie just like the first. What the building of the first copy of Transformers 3 accomplished, and building of the second copy does not, is delimiting of the type. This confusion in the context of copyright between an item and its type is the source of a lot of bendy arguments.
api 13y ago
Worth a repost here: http://thetrichordist.com/2012/04/15/meet-the-new-boss-worse-than-the-old-boss-full-post/ http://thetrichordist.com/2012/04/15/meet-the-new-boss-worse... So far I haven't heard a good answer as to how artists, musicians, and other creators will get paid in this new world. Usually people just toss out buzzwords like "micropayments," which are "magic happens here" answers, or are ignorant of the economics of the industry. That talk explains it well.
- davidgerard 13y ago
  The answer is "as badly as they were before". Most musicians never got paid, ever; Lowery's articles are nostalgia of a no-longer privileged class for their place in the old Stalinism.
  - api 13y ago
    I think his point is that in the past, most musicians never got paid. Now no musicians ever get paid. We've traded a horrible, unequal, corrupt system for compensating artists for no system for compensating artists.
    - qu4z-2 13y ago
      "Compensate" always seems like an odd word to use for paying someone to do what they presumably enjoy. To me "compensate" primarily means giving someone money/something in exchange for loss or inconvenience you've caused them. Is that not the meaning you're using? Personally, I suggest "pay", as in "no system for paying artists".
JohnHaugeland 13y ago
I'm really tired of a warez organization using this site as its news broadcast point, to be honest. It's always nonsense, and we should be better than to humor this. We're the people they steal from.

131 points by Lightning 13y ago

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

I favor reforming copyright, patents, and so on, but this article makes a horrible case for it, and is so full of errors and sillyness that it's really just bad propaganda, rather than a serious argument. > failure of its industrial capacity in the mid-1970 Manufacturing continues to grow in the US. What has declined are the number of people employed in that sector, just as the number of farmers once declined. > United States can have effective trade sanctions against Cuba 40+ years of trade sanctions and who is still in power? I would not call that effective. And then the main part of the article, that if the Pirate Party gets 5% in Germany, they're going to "start dismantling the atrocious copyright and patent monopolies, worldwide." I don't think so: Germans invent a lot of stuff too, write books, software, compose music, make movies, and so on, and are not going to throw out Intellectual Property as a means of promoting those activities, lock, stock, and barrel. Hopefully some reform of the system is possible, but to be effective, this area of law is always going to be something of a messy compromise.

hetman 13y ago
I think he meant effective economically, not necessarily politically.
- davidw 13y ago
  It's difficult to tease out the effects of a failed economic system from the sanctions. The sanctions, politically, are probably one of the things that help prop up the Castros, as they can place all the blame for their problems on the sanctions, rather than a political and economic system that does not work.
igravious 13y ago
> Manufacturing continues to grow in the US. What has declined are the number of people employed in that sector, just as the number of farmers once declined. You equate one type of growth with success. Given that we are living through a period of relatively high unemployment and social inequity in the US and Europe the onus is on you to explain why you equate growth with success. Maybe this type of growth isn't politically/economically/environmentally stable? > 40+ years of trade sanctions and who is still in power? I would not call that effective. Again, what is your measure? You seem to be measuring the wrong thing.For example, with the current sanctions against Iran[1] the Office of Foreign Assets Control[2] aims to do what? You claim it would be to effect political change in Iran. Regime change. In what other context have we heard this expression used? The Military overthrow of Saddam in Iraq. With this view economic sanctions are used in lieu of military force. These sanctions seem to hurt the average man, woman and child on the street however causing hardship and misery. Saddam was still in power when we rolled in. Mugabe is. The Ayatollahs in Iran are still going strong. Fidel appears to be handing power over to Raúl. So by your reckoning they have been effective nowhere. So why still use them? To me they look a lot like collective punishment. > I don't think so: Germans invent a lot of stuff too, write books, software, compose music, make movies, and so on, and are not going to throw out Intellectual Property as a means of promoting those activities, lock, stock, and barrel. Dismantle is perhaps too strong, too rhetorically strident. Reform would be better, yes - you use the term yourself. Remember copyright has only been around to a serious extent† since the Queen Anne statute[3] of 1710. Patents are younger still. The tide has flowed one way so far, maybe it's time to flow the other. The current state of affairs seems to favour the few of the multitude. > bad propaganda These guys were elected to European Parliament, I know we all have a rather dim view of politicians but somebody seems to be buying their PR. :) --- † Excluding a judgment in the 6th century in Celtic Brehon law enunciated thus, “As to every Cow its Calf, so to every Book its Copy" [1] http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/Programs/Documents/iran.pdf http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/Programs/D... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Foreign_Assets_Control http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Foreign_Assets_Contro... [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statute_of_Anne http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statute_of_Anne
- davidw 13y ago
  Manufacturing: I was stating that his assertion was wrong, nothing more than that. Trade sanctions: I'm having difficulty following your train of thought, but my point was that the Castros are still in power, so the sanctions have not worked, contrary to his assertion that they were 'effective'. > The current state of affairs seems to favour the few of the multitude. The number of people creating stuff is likely to always be lower than the number of those who consume. The whole point of the system is to encourage that production by giving the creators a means to extract some money from the consumers - thus ensuring a supply of things to consume. I agree that the balance is currently too far in favor of producers.
darkarmani 13y ago
> but to be effective, this area of law is always going to be something of a messy compromise. I wouldn't call infinite copyright a compromise. When is the last time you saw copyright expire on a work of art?
- davidw 13y ago
  Did you see the part where I wrote that it needs reforming? That's exactly what I'm referring to. This sums up my point of view pretty well: http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2012/09/patent-theory-on-the-back-of-a-napkin.html http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2012/09/pat...

benologist 13y ago

Hopefully a tipping point against Falkvinge's endless rhetoric is closer than I think.

dnautics 13y ago

The underestimation of political change in the US is one of the bigger errors. There is shallow but bipartisan support for this - but the interesting dynamic is that it's actually the 'hardcore activists' in both parties for an end to IP in general. Important political figures, too, have opined on the matter, for example Richard Posner, a conservative/libertarian judge sitting fairly high on the federal bench.

rayiner 13y ago
Posner has not called for an end to IP, mind you. He's called for reducing patent terms and narrowing the scope of patentability.
- dnautics 13y ago
  he has openly speculated if IP is necessary at all (except for pharmaceuticals)

chakalakasp 13y ago

It's a bit disingenuous to pretend that the EU acts as a whole and thus can be considered a single economy. A Cyprus Euro is not a German Euro. If Estonia decides to throw away the Berne Convention and legally allow wholesale piracy, the Germans ^H^H^H^H^H^H^H EU will happily throw them under the bus. Happy fun time with America is worth a lot more than indulging some minor political party's crazy sauce in some inconsequential EU state.

vidarh 13y ago
Which is presumably why his article is talking about what it will take to achieve majority support within the EU, and focusing on Germany as way of increasing support on EU Commission level, rather than talking about "indulging some minor political party's crazy sauce in some inconsequential EU state".
- chakalakasp 13y ago
  The thing is, Germany doesn't just manufacture things, they design them as well. It seems unlikely to me that they would adopt a stance on IP that ran counter to their own interests. Honestly, it's hard for me to read TorrentFreak articles, because they always seem to come from the assumed standpoint that normal people want IP to go away and that only oppressive corporations with outdated and unfair business models want to keep it. This is far from the truth.

adventured 13y ago

"Therefore, the United States cannot execute trade sanctions against Europe without getting hurt more itself." I kind of wish this argument were plausible, sadly it's not even remotely accurate (as another post noted). First, the US would apply leverage on an individual basis, rather than against the whole of Europe or EU, and end up accomplishing the desired outcome by fracturing unity. Second, the US has the global reserve currency. It's a huge economic influence multiplier while it lasts. Third, the US depends a lot more on Mexico, Canada, Japan and China than it does the European Union, across the board economically. The poor assumption being made is that somehow the US and the EU trade with each other equally (such that a sanction war would be based on total GDP), but that's not even remotely true. China is the EU's biggest trading partner. The US is still the world's largest manufacturer (not the largest exporter of course). The US also can be completely independent in regards to natural resources, which is something the European Union can't do any time soon (requiring for example Russia's natural gas and oil). Europe has no singular political command or currency. As such it's not difficult for the US to separate it into pieces leverage wise. Germany is the only major power in the EU that can afford to stand against the US financially. If the Fed wants to it can tip France or Italy into recessions at any time by applying pressure on their bonds, and the UK simply isn't going to go against the US. Germany would have to take a risky balls on the table stand and hope a lot of other nations joined them.

iSnow 13y ago

Well, there is currently zero chance of the Pirate Party winning seats in the fall election in Germany and even less (yes I know) chance to become king-maker.

junto 13y ago
I wouldn't say that it is impossible. I'm witnessing a large advertising campaign promoting the Piratenpartei in my part of Germany. However, I do believe that Falkvinge is naive. Although his theory (I believe) seems sound, his tipping point is way further away than he thinks. The reality is that the tipping point lies with the younger generation. The older generation are (in the main), a completely lost cause. They don't get it and they don't want to. They have other concerns; support for their children, jobs, health, pensions and social services. The Piratenpartei need to have a multi-faceted offering to encourage more older people to vote for them. In the long term, the younger generation who have a concern and understanding of privacy concerns are the key. However, (and this is a really important point), the next generation AFTER them won't get it. They will have grown up in a society where (for example) privacy is not an natural right. They will be ingrained into a habit of downloading via iTunes, Amazon and Google. They won't know any different. They are embedded in their world of Facebook and iPhones. They only know a narrow internet world, that is controlled by a few large corporations. Therefore the Piratenpartei have a narrow window of time in which to lodge a foot in the Bundestag. They need to gain enough popular support from the generation who grew up in a world where (briefly) the pay walls didn't exist, and things were free. The latter generation are quite possibly a lost cause.
- VMG 13y ago
  > They need to gain enough popular support from the generation who grew up in a world where (briefly) the pay walls didn't exist, and things were free You do understand that Facebook and Google ARE free, and they are because they can show targeted ads? > They are embedded in their world of Facebook and iPhones. They only know a narrow internet world, that is controlled by a few large corporations. They seem to prefer this world to BBSes and Geocities. Who am I to tell them what kind of internet they should use?

nohuck13 13y ago

Falkvinge must be a mainstream politician now. He's pandering to the base with ad hominems while foregoing the opportunity to make an intellectual case :) I want to try and understand. On the WTO "having moved ahead from that failure with disguising lopsided rent-seeking schemes as “free trade agreements”. The first of these was the WTO" He seems to think his audience will just know what this means. I admit I don't have WTO objections filed away in my (libertarian-leaning) subconscious under "obviously true, no need for explanation." According to Wikipedia [1], objections include "-Rich countries are able to maintain high import duties and quotas in certain products, blocking imports from developing countries (e.g. clothing); -The increase in non-tariff barriers such as anti-dumping measures allowed against developing countries; -The maintenance of high protection of agriculture in developed countries while developing ones are pressed to open their markets; -Many developing countries do not have the capacity to follow the negotiations and participate actively in the Uruguay Round" These actually seems like quite legitimate political gripes to me, and they fit with what I know. There are also structural reasons people object to the neoliberal opening of markets, in a big bang release [Martin Khor, 2] "The problem in trade liberalisation is that a country can control how fast to liberalise its imports (and thus increase the inflow of products) but cannot determine by itself how fast its exports grow. Export growth partly depends on the prices of the existing exported products (and developing countries have suffered from serious declines in their tenns of trade) and also on having or developing the infrastructure, human and enterprise capacity for new exports (which is a longterm process and not easily achieved)." So that's at least an interesting and intelligible set of claims that one can debate with empirical evidence. I don't know what I conclude from them, but its too bad the rhetoric tends to be so substance-free given how important it is. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_World_Trade_Organization http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_World_Trade_Or... [2] http://www.twnside.org.sg/title/davos2-cn.htm http://www.twnside.org.sg/title/davos2-cn.htm Edit: formatting

curiouscats 13y ago

I wish the turning point were close but I don't think it is. As other comments note he doesn't make a good case for his claim. I am surprised how little other countries have cared how easily the USA State Department and Trade representatives have been able to dictate terms to their politicians. It seems to me for a tipping point to occur other countries have to punish politicians for being toadies to the USA's dictates. Until that happens I don't hold out much hope. I would love it for the USA to turn against the copyright monopolists but I think they have bought a significant majority of our politicians and we have shown no interest in throwing out the politicians doing favors for those that have paid them well.

PhasmaFelis 13y ago

He's probably wrong, but I hope he's not.

rayiner 13y ago

What sticks in my craw is Falkvinge's continually disingenuous use of the word "monopoly." Owning and asserting a copyright does not make you a monopolist any more than owning a beach house on the Oregon coast makes you one. All property rights are monopolies. That does not mean owners of property rights are monopolists. Concretely: nobody is preventing someone from producing the next summer blockbuster and distributing it for free on BitTorrent, just as nobody is preventing you from building a beach house on the Oregon coast and letting anyone stay over. I think there is zero potential for significantly eroding copyright rights, and a bunch of young people who don't produce anything themselves certainly won't be the impetus for change. At the most basic level, copyright strikes a cord with people: if I make something, I should own it and be able to control it. Young people are willing to play fast and loose with those property rights, as they always have (cutting through people's yards, etc) but that doesn't signal the impending downfall of property rights as a system.

pessimizer 13y ago
If your owning a beach house in Oregon prevents me from building one just like it in Hawaii, it's a monopoly too.
- rayiner 13y ago
  You're quite welcome to make a movie "just like" Transformers 3. But that's not what Falkvinge is advocating for. He's not advocating for your right to "create" or "build". He's advocating "copying", "appropriating", "using" the work of others without compensating them.
  - randallsquared 13y ago
    Copying is creation. It's certainly a lot less work than the creation of the first copy was, but after a copy operation, there is indeed another movie just like the first. What the building of the first copy of Transformers 3 accomplished, and building of the second copy does not, is delimiting of the type. This confusion in the context of copyright between an item and its type is the source of a lot of bendy arguments.

api 13y ago

Worth a repost here: http://thetrichordist.com/2012/04/15/meet-the-new-boss-worse-than-the-old-boss-full-post/ http://thetrichordist.com/2012/04/15/meet-the-new-boss-worse... So far I haven't heard a good answer as to how artists, musicians, and other creators will get paid in this new world. Usually people just toss out buzzwords like "micropayments," which are "magic happens here" answers, or are ignorant of the economics of the industry. That talk explains it well.

davidgerard 13y ago
The answer is "as badly as they were before". Most musicians never got paid, ever; Lowery's articles are nostalgia of a no-longer privileged class for their place in the old Stalinism.
- api 13y ago
  I think his point is that in the past, most musicians never got paid. Now no musicians ever get paid. We've traded a horrible, unequal, corrupt system for compensating artists for no system for compensating artists.
  - qu4z-2 13y ago
    "Compensate" always seems like an odd word to use for paying someone to do what they presumably enjoy. To me "compensate" primarily means giving someone money/something in exchange for loss or inconvenience you've caused them. Is that not the meaning you're using? Personally, I suggest "pay", as in "no system for paying artists".

JohnHaugeland 13y ago

I'm really tired of a warez organization using this site as its news broadcast point, to be honest. It's always nonsense, and we should be better than to humor this. We're the people they steal from.