I love how the " the duration of the copyright term is pretty much irrelevant for an ethical discussion." is so casually slipped in there.
The main thrust of what I've read so far is that it is not government's responsibility to ensure that artists are fairly compensated. Except that it is explicitly Congress's job to "promote the progress of science and the useful arts" through arranging the underlying principles of the marketplace. Governments so far have set up a metaphor of intellectual property to guide this marketplace, and this article is fully grounded in that tradition. I think there are problems with that metaphor that are brought to our attention by what digital technology makes possible. In giving advice to people who want to work in the music industry, I would point to reports like "The Sky is Rising" that Ali linked to and encourage people to embrace the possibilities of business models not built on the artificial scarcity of digital objects. It is not moral to create scarcity out of abundance for the cause of rent seeking. This all might not be relevant to SFC's response to the piece, but I completely agree that this is a moral discussion. But not all moral premises are valid. When budgeting morally, what percent of income does a generation in an average of $25k of debt have to spend on CDs? As much as their parents could spend? Anyway, there is a moral discussion to be had, but it does not start from accepting every metaphor that guided the music business before it became possible to distribute all music to everyone who wanted it without additional costs. I may have more to add in a day or two, the next time I come up for air. -Nate
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