On Tuesday, Apr 10, 2007, at 15:53 America/Los_Angeles, Denys Stephens 
wrote:

> I have a lot of sympathy with your view that
> art belongs to everyone,and in that sense we
> shouldn't have to pay for it.

But Alfonso didn't say that.  He said "these books belong to humanity."

> But if that's
> totally true, shouldn't we all perform for
> free and just give away our recordings to people
> who like them? The major libraries of the
> world surely cost a lot of money to run,

I think Alfonso's point is that the libraries are state-funded 
institutions, which means that they're paid twice, in essence -- once 
from taxes, and again from user fees -- and the user fees, while an 
insignificant source of funds for the institution, are high enough to 
discourage the materials from actually being used.

> and
> if we pay them for copies of musical sources
> they own, are we not helping to preserve them
> for the benefit of future generations? -

I suppose that's the idea.  The question is whether it works that way 
in practice.



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