On 1/31/07, Josh at GoUK.com <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
<< If you make furniture, the fact that furniture-duplication wands are invented does not give you the right to restrict people from duplicating chairs.>> ++++ No, but I should have the rights to restrict people from duplicating MY chairs. ++++ That makes no sense. No chair is unique. They all follow a fundamental design: to provide a place to sit. "YOUR" chair will be a copy or a variation of a chair that has gone before it. You're not a god of furniture: creating something out of nothing: you're just another twiddler in a long line of furniture twiddlers. You may not have slavishly copied another designer's design, but you will (inadvertently) have copied parts of someone else's design.
Yes - and here's the difference. If I create something, I am (more than likely) using some previous ideas, but I am creating something new. If I mash up "Angel of Death" by Slayer with "Santa Was Seen Flying Over Soviet Airspace" by Philistines Jr, I'm creating something new. If I buy the Slayer "Reign In Blood" album, copy it onto 20 blank CDs and give those copies away to my friends, I'm stealing. If I take those CDs and leave one in each room of my houses scattered around the globe, it's personal use. It also makes me a cheapskate. :-)
If you have to get paid over and over again for your chair, then why shouldn't you pay over and over again the man who made the glue for your chair, or the wood logger who cut the tree to make your chair, or the farmer who planted the tree, or the worm who dug the earth around the tree enriching the earth and allowing the water to reach the roots? You can go on forever: no one thing is created by one person.
The glue man, the logger etc - I do. Because it's a different chair each time and I have to buy more glue and wood.
If a singer writes a song that's sold on CD, should he pay the person who invented the CD in the first place?
No - but he pays for the blank CDs, a proportion of that cost covering the various licenses involved in the technology.
Should we all, every day, pay Tim Berners-Lee a fee for "inventing" the internet? Should Tim pay his mum for giving him life so he could go on to create the internet? It is just ridiculous for one person or set of people to say that they are the creator of something and then hold sway over it … if they have rights, then so does everyone else along the chain who allowed that final thing to be produced. Musicians couldn't sell their music today via the net without the work of generations of scientists and IT wizards ….. the scientists created/produced a way for the musicians to distribute their work, and so the scientists are due a huge cut of everything the musicians make.
And, until recently, the scientists creating those technologies were employed by EMI et al, who paid them a wage for their work. And EMI made good money out of sponsoring (by way of wages) the development of those technologies.
If producers don't want people to duplicate things, then they shouldn't put them out in the public arena in the first place. If you stop people duplicating things, then where would the world be: we'd stop people duplicating ideas, thoughts, reason, sense, compassion, love, whatever. Everything is copied and changed – from biology to IT – fundamental change is driven by incremental improvements. If producers don't want their work duplicated, then they should keep it to themselves. If that means they don't produce, then fine – they can do something else with their lives.
The problem here is where do you draw the line. Sharing ideas, yes, sharing specifics, no. Complete freedom to copy means eventual stagnation. Your argument essentially says that no-one should ever benefit from their work/creativity.
We all duplicate something: we repeat ideas, we come out with catchphrases, we retell jokes, we pay homage in the things we create to the things that have gone before us. Nothing is ever original. Should Matt Lucas get a fee every time someone quips "I'm the only gay in the village"? Should Bono get paid every time someone mentions Bloody Sunday? Just because something is in paper, digital medium, fabric, etc it doesn't mean that it shouldn't be copied.
OK, an example. My band has a 3 song CD out. While we're not out to make money on it (we actually lose money on each CD sold at £2, and the tracks are available as MP3s on the website anyway), if you bought a copy off me, duplicated the packaging and appearance exactly, burned the three tracks onto vinyl look CDs and then sold them (or gave them away), claiming to be an official representitive of the band, I'd be *mightily* ****ed off. If you want to sing it down your local Karaoke, or mash it up with your own beats, a Scandiwegian Black Metal band, or Ted Ray reading Thomas The Tank Engine then (so long as you send me a copy!) go for it - it's re-use of ideas, not theft. I've also got a book out. If I find out you've been photocopying it and posting a copy to anyone who wants one, again, I'll be mightily ****ed off.
If producers want to go on producing and making money, then they have to offer a distribution channel that is cheaper than copying … which in terms of digital media must be possible. DRM is driven by the avaricious through supine incompetence.
When you come up with a workable mechanism that allows completely free copying of all parts of a recording and its packaging, and pays the artist a fair sum for his/her work - let me know. Please note - I'm not saying the existing methods of copyright protection / DRM are morally right and technically workable in the long term, I just don't believe that your "everything should be free" model can work. Cheers, Rich. - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/
