"Music will become regarded as a throwaway item"

[Cort Haus]

DanS, do you think that people who work for software companies should be paid? After all, if people treat stolen software in the same way, perhaps many IT workers have "limited value in this world" too.

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by Agathon
Downloading music is only illegal depending on where you do it, and there's nothing morally wrong with it. Too bad that people don't want Sony, et al. determining how they should or should not enjoy culture.

**** them. If they go bankrupt, too bad.

Invoking the spectre of the big bad record companies is always the easy way out. People who rob stuff from houses justify their actions too. They see themselves as victims of society getting back what they deserve.

My point is not about corporations, its is about artists going unpaid.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
The labels provide the promotional machine that helps the bands get noticed above the din of the wannabes.

No. They provide spin and hype that helps talentless skanks with coke habits get noticed over the din of the wannabees.

People have no problem eventually finding music they like, and they don't need some effete drug addicts to find it for them.

[DanS]

I'm not sure what your point is. The computer software and music industries are different in many respects. That said, lots and lots of IT workers have limited value in this world -- some even hugely negative value.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Cort Haus


Invoking the spectre of the big bad record companies is always the easy way out. People who rob stuff from houses justify their actions too. They see themselves as victims of society getting back what they deserve.

My point is not about corporations, its is about artists going unpaid.

Copyright infringement is not theft.

Try again.

No one owes you a living making music, so don't cry if you can't.

[DanS]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
The labels provide the promotional machine that helps the bands get noticed above the din of the wannabes.

Perhaps they are merely ineffective middle-men. Apparently, McGee has placed a value on their work that is different than what the labels perceive their own value to be.

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by DanS
I'm not sure what your point is. The computer software and music industries are different in many respects. That said, lots and lots of IT workers have limited value in this world -- some even hugely negative value.

There are differences, and similarities. The similarities are that it is possible to reproduce software at a marginal cost approaching zero - the same as for music.

Hence, there is no more reason for people to pay for a completed piece of software than for a completed piece of music - other than for the income of the producers that many people are so keen to deny them.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Agathon
People have no problem eventually finding music they like,

But they don't.

[Sandman]

I buy CDs all the time.

Second-hand though. So basically I don't support the music biz at all.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Cort Haus

Hence, there is no more reason for people to pay for a completed piece of software than for a completed piece of music - other than for the income of the producers that many people are so keen to deny them.

No one owes them a living, they can cry more.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
But they don't.

Only if they are deaf and blind.

[Agathon]

Time to trot out the old warhorse.

Copyright is not like other property rights. The concept of property is ancient, yet copyright is only two to three hundred years old. But it's not just an age difference. Copyright is a fundamentally different kind of right in that has always been viewed in law as conditional on its benefiting consumers. So calling copyright violation a violation of property rights is misleading.

The fundamental justification for copyright is that allowing people to charge for use of copy will encourage people to create worthwhile ideational goods that benefit everyone. I simply do not care if you disagree, those are the facts, and every single US court decision about copyright has, to my knowledge, upheld this utilitarian understanding of it (it actually explicitly says this in article one of the US Constitution).

I quote: "promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries".

The whole point is to promote these things, not to recognize some spurious pre-existing notion of "intellectual property". Copyright is a wholly conventional and legal fiction. It does not, and has never embodied some intrinsic ethical right.

At present, we find this notion of copyright – the notion that benefits consumers – under attack. More and more, those who own copyrights want to recast it as a traditional property right, which may be held in perpetuity (or at least for a very long time). Technological change, along with digital rights management is allowing these people to curtail traditional fair use rights.

There's also no a priori reason why the funding of art should be through the market system. All the best art is already funded largely through non-market mechanisms, so the loss of much of the junk isn't anything to cry about.

Moreover, given the increased power of creation and distribution that the internet enables, it isn't clear that we really need the same copyrights we used to have. Things like books and recorded music used to be much more expensive to make and distribute, and hence some form of protection for investments was necessary to encourage people to take the risk in the first place. It's not clear that this still applies in many areas of human endeavour.

But our glorious lawmakers aren't listening and aren't even considering this. Their view of copyright seems to be that the point is to screw the consumer. That's why I'm not allowed to rip a DVD I've paid for to watch on another device, and that's why I have to sit through garbage copyright notices that I can't fast forward and don't want to watch. It's also why I'm apparently not allowed to lend my music to friends, except under ridiculous circumstances, or that I will have spyware surreptitiously installed on my computer if I try to play a CD on it.

Thus, if we want more consumer friendly laws, our only real option is civil disobedience. It's not like we can afford to bribe politicians like content corporations do. I don't see why consumers should stand idly by while Sony, Universal et al dictate to us.

[DanS]

Originally posted by Cort Haus
There are differences, and similarities. The similarities are that it is possible to reproduce software at a marginal cost approaching zero - the same as for music.

Hence, there is no more reason for people to pay for a completed piece of software than for a completed piece of music - other than for the income of the producers that many people are so keen to deny them.

I don't find the analogy satisfying, mainly because computer software other than games has a different business model.

Anyway, we all have to carve out a living in this world -- to either produce value or make somebody think we produce value. And then we have to set up a tollgate on this value. Mostly, I look at this as a rejection of the business model of the gatekeepers to the music, not the musicians themselves.

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by Agathon
No one owes them a living, they can cry more.

Why should you get paid for whatever it is that you do?

[Kuciwalker]

He shouldn't, he's a philosophy professor.