>
> Sharing is good for society, but only when sharing things you have
> permission to.
It is true that breaking agreements is not good.
However, all iPod owners intuitively understand that agreements not to
share are more bad than the act of breaking them, and is thus
justified on a 'lesser of two evils' basis.
Really? Do you have empirical evidence about the conscience levels of
iPod owners that the rest of aren't privy to Dave?
> I suspect we will never agree with each other about
> the ownership of music or specific cultural output
I'm not sure - I am not close minded...? Not sure what you're saying tbh.
> but I'm sure
> you can see my point if you think of a physical posession.
Analogies between the physical and digital are almost always confusion.
Yes - hence your arguing of chairs as an example of something copyable
a while ago.
> My position on music was made up when I considered how I would
> react if a piece of music I composed were to be used to promote
> a cause I disagreed with. If music belongs to the public domain,
> then I have no ability to control who can use my creations.
If we do not believe in freedom of speech for those we despise, we do
not believe in it at all.
Freedom of speech is wholly different from misquoting someone to
further your own ends.
> One of the complaints I often hear is that music
> companies are not adapting their business models to take
> advantage of the "Internet generation" - and yet the subscription
> model (ie explicit music rental) can only really work when the right
> to play the song for a restricted time exists.
Thinking that rental is an adaptation is bizarre.
Renting is commercialised lending.
Yes. And your point is? Music rental has been going on for years -
have you never been a member of a music library? Pay a minimal fee to
try music you might like - if you like it, go and buy it. Where's the
problem there?
And why is commercialised lending in general so bad? If I buy a car,
and lend it to you for a month, you pay me a small fee for the
convenience. You don't have to buy your own car, and I'm recompensed
for the depreciation incurred by my car having an extra 2,000 miles on
its odometer.
Presumably you live in a squat, have never rented a home or rented out
a room, and feel that councils who still provide affordable rental
housing are evil.
If I buy a spade, I can lend the spade to my neighbour. If the spade
manufacturer made it illegal to lend the spade, the world would see
that as wrong of the manufacturer - evil even.
(The same argument doesn't apply to cars, or guns, though - which is
interesting.)
Some, mainly potentially dangerous items require you to have a license
before you can use them. There are restrictions on who you lend them
to - do you want to live in a world where I can legally borrow a gun
and come round your house with it?
File sharing is _not_ file lending. It is file _duplication_.
When you lend, you take a loss. If I lend you my book, I can't read my
book. If I need to refer to it badly, and you aren't reachable, I have
to buy another book.
Ease of duplication is an affordance of the medium. Why are rights
holders so against this?
(In the case of music, they distribute digital audio on a handy disc
with the same affordances. Why don't they stop this?)
When that handy disc was originally released, the technology to
duplicate it wasn't readily available to the general public... In
much the same way that the easy copying of vinyl to cassette tape
wasn't around at the invention of the vinyl record. I realize that
this isn't strictly relevant to the copyright argument, but it's worth
bearing in mind.
This affordance is a great improvement over lending, since we don't
take that loss, and makes our lives more enjoyable. Yes, this kills
off the commercialised version of lending, renting. So be it - there
are plenty of other business models.
So you keep saying. You've yet to describe a workable one for music...
Perhaps the term "sharing" implies a similarity to physical property
more than alternatives (copying, duplication, diffusion, publishing,
broadcasting, etc) but I generally use this term as it highlights the
psycho-social value of digital duplication: lending a spade is an act
of friendship, and duplicating a digital file is today's version of
that.
Rubbish. Duplication is duplication, it's not a more convenient form
of lending. As you described above, lending involves some physical
inconvenience if you can't use the item you've lent out. What you're
describing is "giving".
As with the spade, it would be wrong to restrict that.
>
> The primary aim is to reduce the number of sharers (cf sharees)
This is an evil idea: Restricting us from duplicating files is
destroying the basis of friendship, and cannot be excused.
You keep using emotive terms here – "evil", "destroying the basis of
friendship" in order to get your wholly unworkable argument across.
Just because I'm not supposed to copy my CD collection to give it to
my mate in the pub, does that mean I'm any less of a friend? No. It
doesn't.
Your argument is that all music should be utterly free. Which, while
a nice idea in Davetopia, or wherever you live, is completely
unworkable. What you're actually arguing is that the career of
"musician" is somehow less worthwhile than that of, say, "accountant".
You're determined that a musician should give his work away, while
not specifying an alternative business model for him. I've seen it
suggested that musicians should make their money from live
performances. Now, what happens if a musician is unable to perform
live (through illness, say)? Your model doesn't allow for him to
license his music to someone else to perform and pay him royalties –
because they'll be able to do it for free. Mr Disabled Musician has
no way to use his skills to support himself, and becomes an
accountant. We all lose.
Just a few thoughts,
Rich.
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