"But the only great principle they're defending is that they're too cheap and lazy to do their own work."
The principle is that derivative artists have rights to their fruits of labour.
Telling different versions of Star Wars, or The Lord of the Rings, or The Lion King IS "doing your own work". And copyright deprives artists of the right to do that.
What do you think websites like deviantArt and fanfiction.net have been doing for so long? Unless you want to really be consistent and say that these websites should be shut down, you're going to have to step back and see how copyright is AGAINST the principles of John Locke, not for them.
Crowdfunding, whether its through the many tried and tested examples of collecting tickets for gigs, or through Kickstarter, or pre-ordered copies of DVDs, is superior to copyright in every way because both original and derivative artists have their fruits of labour protected. It makes copyright discreditable from every angle.
You are not entitled to say how you are best defending the "rights of artists". So many markets have been wiped out as a result of the communist-tendencies of copyright and the life, liberty and property has been sucked out of derivative artists for too long. Crowdfunding gives us no excuse for it.
There. And I didn't have to mention how you've exculpated the accountability of corporations for what they do through using pirates as scapegoats. "Since the pirates are running riot, why should be do anything about privacy invasions?" I think there are even many principled copyright maximalists who could call you out for this nonsense. It is a matter of principle. The Patriot Act is to be opposed unequivocally, and I say this as somebody who supports the fight against Islamic fascism. It's the same thing.
What he means is "pirated copies of 1984 and Animal Farm circulating under the Soviet Union's radar" helped to win the cold war. The Soviets would have used any excuse to stop material like that from spreading. And that would have included copyright.
Always remember, every time a government censors an opinion they are in effect making an "intellectual property" claim on that opinion. You cannot say that because that idea belongs to us and noone else. Only we get to decide if that should be said. You must first ask us for permission. It is the same idea.
The Chinese population are highly lacking in internet, and when they DO have internet it is under high surveillance and restrictions. ITunes is heavily blocked. Indeed, it is hard to access any site from outside China while within China because it is so bad. So yeah, think SOPA but a hundred times worse. And what is the world piracy rate of the country? 80% That is what happens WITHOUT BitTorrent. The copyright advocates are deluding themselves when they say copyright needs "more protection". It's a blatant utopian delusion.
Nowadays, we can only pass around pirated copies of Animal Farm within Iran. Even Christopher Hitchens played a part in distributing the pirated copies when he visited the country in secret. He said of the Iranian mullahs (paraphrasing) "I love how they keep trying to show footage of themselves smashing the satellite dishes in order to prove a point. They aren't fooling anyone. It'll never work. Most Iranians know how to make international phone calls. Many server work-arounds are made to counter every move these thugs make. The more attempts at oppression, the more humourous it gets. We're going to see great things from Iran."
But of course, all of this has to be stopped in the name of a utopian idea that claims to stop theft when it cannot even do anything about pre-owned sales. Insufferable. Plain, insufferable.
No, ladies and gentlemen, copyright is not "anti-communism" it is PRO communism. You have to get this bit right. Especially when free speech is crushed, governments subsidise the destruction of markets, artists end up being locked out from their own works by parties that took no part in the creative process, technological innovation is repressed bitterly, and the fruits of labour of derivative artists are flat out disposable. Sounds like communism to me.
Ahh, yes. Even as a raging Leftie, I cannot help but praise the free market philosophy here. Crowdfunding is for both indie artists AND mainstream artists.
In fact, on this issue, it is one of those very rare occasions where I WANT the counter-culture to become the over-the-counter-culture. Because the sooner crowdfunding becomes the mainstream way of financing artists, the better. It will be fun to see copyright believers attempt to dismiss it. A way of funding artists' fruits of labour that DOESN'T depend on copyright, and does not come with any liberty compromises? Nooooo? It COULDN'T be? AND derivative artist's fruits of labour are protected to boot? GET OUT!
Yes indeed: the words "capitalism" and "revolution" can be uttered in the same breath.
"[We want to] change social attitudes toward downloading. Many people know it is illegal but they continue to do it... Our collective goal is not to sue everybody… but to change the sense of entitlement that people have, regarding Internet-based theft of property.”
Perhaps it is your social attitude that needs to change, in particular when people feel that it is appropriate to lock people up for doing the same thing as borrowing DVDs from friends.
And perhaps you need to change the sense of unjustified entitlement copyright law has when it comes to claiming authority despite its irrationality.
It is probably better to say this: "piracy" does not really exist in an economic system where creativity is treated as services, not products. That sounds tautological, but considering how it is a much better way of stopping people from free-riding it is worth talking about.
You may be opening doors with me if you said there are some costs required for the storage of data. For example, Dropbox, MediaFire, MegaUpload, etc all have fees of their own; specifically for the speed of downloads and for the uploading of large files. There has to be money involved somewhere for hosting servers.
That I think is legitimate. But what I cannot see being sensible is trying to use these costs to guard the IP solely. That is quite different from the storage of data. If what you say is true, that paywalls are inevitable for one reason or another, you have still said nothing about how to stop the piracy of the internet.
The punishment for that is less quality work, or even nothing at all. Remember, in order to get the great production effects, action sequences, etc of a movie it costs millions. That is on top of what the artists think they are worth. A pirate will know the consequences of his actions because he may not get the great movie he wanted for free. Artists can hold pirates to account very powerfully like this.
If the pirate pledges, he can rest assured that he won't be ripped off himself (it will get to the point where studios will refund pledges if the movie gets cancelled halfway - studios take the fall in this way already) and he also will not be ripped off by a middleman, legitimate or not, who may profit from someone not acting on the behalf of the artist. Legal retailers, remember, do not necessarily participate in fair capitalism when they sell bulk DVDs at a profit - if you follow IP philosophy closely, this profit could be seen as a form of IP theft.
Lets actually take this much further: I can watch a legal copy of a DVD for free while following all the copyright laws - by borrowing from a friend, reselling through Ebay or watching it at a friend's house - I can free ride without any sense of accountability whatsoever.
Kickstarter, on the other hand, makes even THOSE kinds of unspoken free-riders accountable. Even the people who supposedly "contribute" to the artist by getting the DVDs second hand (they don't) will have to pitch in with the pledges in a much more direct way. That's the beauty of this. Copyright cannot do anything about these kinds of free-riders while crowdfunding can. So there's an additional advantage there.
It's an argument ad capitalism, isn't it? Well... if there is such a phrase.
I'm as much of a Leftist as most people when it comes to taxing the hell out of the 1% even if Kickstarter themselves fall into that category one day (and believe you me, they will), but the free-market is the only sane perspective we can have here. People have a right to spend their money on whatever they like.
The whole thing is probably a secret distaste of Kickstarter in general. People generally don't like change. Or anything anti-copyright.
By the way, you must always remember that corporations can themselves place Kickstarter bids. Even the ones engaged in piracy. All the way from Google to Megaupload: they'll all start placing refundable pledges of their own (remember, nobody has anything to lose). They'll eventually see that this is in their best interests in order to make a profit from advertising. The balance of power swings over to the artists.
Watch as more and more crowdfunding artists will put their work into the public domain after creation. Watch as more and more pirates are held accountable in ways that copyright could never begin to dream about.
With crowdfunding, if a pirate doesn't pay up, he has nothing to pirate. But with copyright, if a pirate doesn't pay up, he can get away with it.
Crowdfunding websites are the intellectual radicals here. They're not even aware of it themselves.
The arguments against Kickstarter have been laughably baseless. Remember how Amanda Palmer was attacked for a) promoting piracy of her works (which even copyright advocates have to say is within her rights to do so) and b)making too much money? I thought, "Well, there you have it. A system which can help people encourage piracy of their own works by essentially putting it in the public domain and still become filthy rich... and the copyright advocates just want to stick their fingers in their ears and yell 'I'm not listening!' Absolutely perfect."
The logical elegance of assurance contracts cannot be overstated here. Tickets, preordered content, crowdfunding, all of it has tons of evidence to back up a way of thinking that completely discredits copyright.
Paywalls do little to stop people from getting what they want without paying, are easy to walk around with the use of proxies, waste everybody's time and effort, and are fundamentally futile and self-ridiculing.
In fact, they are just about as useful as the U.S.'s Mexican border fence.
If this were crowdfunding, it'd be impossible for a label to oppress artists like this. The artists would have them by the balls.
Also, there would be no way for labels to cheat on royalties. The money would be there for all to see, and labels would have to pay their share: no excuses, no exceptions.
Assurance contracts intellectually trump everything here. Tickets, crowdfunding, all verifiable and backed up by evidence. With no human rights compromises.
If you think it is bad now, just imagine how worse it would have been if Saddam Hussein was still in power. Or his two sadistic sons, Uday and Qusay Hussein.
Always remember: Middle Eastern revolutions gained inspiration and ground on the days that Saddam Hussein was tried for war crimes on TV for all to see. The U.S. mass media decided to keep all of that unreported for so long.
Remember how lots of people laughed at the "domino theory" and democracy being spread across the region? Well what do you call the mass toppling of dictators and huge spread of Arab Spring movements? That's what we on the Left call "destabilisation". We don't say it like it's a bad thing.
Getting rid of Saddam, the 1984-esque totalitarian dictator, was a move that was finally on the right side of history.
Maybe if I just SHOUT my words LIKE this, that WILL give THEM MORE rationality and JUSTIFICATION. CAN I be TAKEN MORE seriously NOW that I am screaming SOME OF my SELECTED words at YOU?!
See, look what you've done. My throat now hurts. I was having fun.
Every notice how religious loonies do the same thing on the internet? If they just capitalise "GOD" enough times that will somehow make it true?
I love how copyright believers "slant" the idea that copyright solves the free-rider problem and pretend that someone can't take from the artist without paying through means of borrowed/resold DVDs.
Re: Why am I not surprised?
"But the only great principle they're defending is that they're too cheap and lazy to do their own work."
The principle is that derivative artists have rights to their fruits of labour.
Telling different versions of Star Wars, or The Lord of the Rings, or The Lion King IS "doing your own work". And copyright deprives artists of the right to do that.
What do you think websites like deviantArt and fanfiction.net have been doing for so long? Unless you want to really be consistent and say that these websites should be shut down, you're going to have to step back and see how copyright is AGAINST the principles of John Locke, not for them.
Crowdfunding, whether its through the many tried and tested examples of collecting tickets for gigs, or through Kickstarter, or pre-ordered copies of DVDs, is superior to copyright in every way because both original and derivative artists have their fruits of labour protected. It makes copyright discreditable from every angle.
You are not entitled to say how you are best defending the "rights of artists". So many markets have been wiped out as a result of the communist-tendencies of copyright and the life, liberty and property has been sucked out of derivative artists for too long. Crowdfunding gives us no excuse for it.
There. And I didn't have to mention how you've exculpated the accountability of corporations for what they do through using pirates as scapegoats. "Since the pirates are running riot, why should be do anything about privacy invasions?" I think there are even many principled copyright maximalists who could call you out for this nonsense. It is a matter of principle. The Patriot Act is to be opposed unequivocally, and I say this as somebody who supports the fight against Islamic fascism. It's the same thing.
(untitled comment)
"Copyright won the cold war."
LOL
What he means is "pirated copies of 1984 and Animal Farm circulating under the Soviet Union's radar" helped to win the cold war. The Soviets would have used any excuse to stop material like that from spreading. And that would have included copyright.
Always remember, every time a government censors an opinion they are in effect making an "intellectual property" claim on that opinion. You cannot say that because that idea belongs to us and noone else. Only we get to decide if that should be said. You must first ask us for permission. It is the same idea.
The Chinese population are highly lacking in internet, and when they DO have internet it is under high surveillance and restrictions. ITunes is heavily blocked. Indeed, it is hard to access any site from outside China while within China because it is so bad. So yeah, think SOPA but a hundred times worse. And what is the world piracy rate of the country? 80% That is what happens WITHOUT BitTorrent. The copyright advocates are deluding themselves when they say copyright needs "more protection". It's a blatant utopian delusion.
Nowadays, we can only pass around pirated copies of Animal Farm within Iran. Even Christopher Hitchens played a part in distributing the pirated copies when he visited the country in secret. He said of the Iranian mullahs (paraphrasing) "I love how they keep trying to show footage of themselves smashing the satellite dishes in order to prove a point. They aren't fooling anyone. It'll never work. Most Iranians know how to make international phone calls. Many server work-arounds are made to counter every move these thugs make. The more attempts at oppression, the more humourous it gets. We're going to see great things from Iran."
But of course, all of this has to be stopped in the name of a utopian idea that claims to stop theft when it cannot even do anything about pre-owned sales. Insufferable. Plain, insufferable.
No, ladies and gentlemen, copyright is not "anti-communism" it is PRO communism. You have to get this bit right. Especially when free speech is crushed, governments subsidise the destruction of markets, artists end up being locked out from their own works by parties that took no part in the creative process, technological innovation is repressed bitterly, and the fruits of labour of derivative artists are flat out disposable. Sounds like communism to me.
Don't buy into this mentality for a second.
Re:
"You haven't shown that there is no such evidence."
You haven't heard of Russell's Teapot, have you?
(untitled comment)
Ahh, yes. Even as a raging Leftie, I cannot help but praise the free market philosophy here. Crowdfunding is for both indie artists AND mainstream artists.
In fact, on this issue, it is one of those very rare occasions where I WANT the counter-culture to become the over-the-counter-culture. Because the sooner crowdfunding becomes the mainstream way of financing artists, the better. It will be fun to see copyright believers attempt to dismiss it. A way of funding artists' fruits of labour that DOESN'T depend on copyright, and does not come with any liberty compromises? Nooooo? It COULDN'T be? AND derivative artist's fruits of labour are protected to boot? GET OUT!
Yes indeed: the words "capitalism" and "revolution" can be uttered in the same breath.
(untitled comment)
"[We want to] change social attitudes toward downloading. Many people know it is illegal but they continue to do it... Our collective goal is not to sue everybody… but to change the sense of entitlement that people have, regarding Internet-based theft of property.”
Perhaps it is your social attitude that needs to change, in particular when people feel that it is appropriate to lock people up for doing the same thing as borrowing DVDs from friends.
And perhaps you need to change the sense of unjustified entitlement copyright law has when it comes to claiming authority despite its irrationality.
Re: Re: Re: NOT "a valuable contribution to the field" -- IT'S A SURVEY.
"Yeah, maybe the corporations WISH they weren't, but they are."
Why shouldn't they? It is theft to take something from the artist without giving anything in return, isn't it?
Re: WALL OF TEXT is Mike's homage to stupid lawyers.
I borrow DVDs.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
It is probably better to say this: "piracy" does not really exist in an economic system where creativity is treated as services, not products. That sounds tautological, but considering how it is a much better way of stopping people from free-riding it is worth talking about.
Re: Re:
You may be opening doors with me if you said there are some costs required for the storage of data. For example, Dropbox, MediaFire, MegaUpload, etc all have fees of their own; specifically for the speed of downloads and for the uploading of large files. There has to be money involved somewhere for hosting servers.
That I think is legitimate. But what I cannot see being sensible is trying to use these costs to guard the IP solely. That is quite different from the storage of data. If what you say is true, that paywalls are inevitable for one reason or another, you have still said nothing about how to stop the piracy of the internet.
Re: Re: Re:
The punishment for that is less quality work, or even nothing at all. Remember, in order to get the great production effects, action sequences, etc of a movie it costs millions. That is on top of what the artists think they are worth. A pirate will know the consequences of his actions because he may not get the great movie he wanted for free. Artists can hold pirates to account very powerfully like this.
If the pirate pledges, he can rest assured that he won't be ripped off himself (it will get to the point where studios will refund pledges if the movie gets cancelled halfway - studios take the fall in this way already) and he also will not be ripped off by a middleman, legitimate or not, who may profit from someone not acting on the behalf of the artist. Legal retailers, remember, do not necessarily participate in fair capitalism when they sell bulk DVDs at a profit - if you follow IP philosophy closely, this profit could be seen as a form of IP theft.
Lets actually take this much further: I can watch a legal copy of a DVD for free while following all the copyright laws - by borrowing from a friend, reselling through Ebay or watching it at a friend's house - I can free ride without any sense of accountability whatsoever.
Kickstarter, on the other hand, makes even THOSE kinds of unspoken free-riders accountable. Even the people who supposedly "contribute" to the artist by getting the DVDs second hand (they don't) will have to pitch in with the pledges in a much more direct way. That's the beauty of this. Copyright cannot do anything about these kinds of free-riders while crowdfunding can. So there's an additional advantage there.
Re: Interesting
It's an argument ad capitalism, isn't it? Well... if there is such a phrase.
I'm as much of a Leftist as most people when it comes to taxing the hell out of the 1% even if Kickstarter themselves fall into that category one day (and believe you me, they will), but the free-market is the only sane perspective we can have here. People have a right to spend their money on whatever they like.
The whole thing is probably a secret distaste of Kickstarter in general. People generally don't like change. Or anything anti-copyright.
Re:
By the way, you must always remember that corporations can themselves place Kickstarter bids. Even the ones engaged in piracy. All the way from Google to Megaupload: they'll all start placing refundable pledges of their own (remember, nobody has anything to lose). They'll eventually see that this is in their best interests in order to make a profit from advertising. The balance of power swings over to the artists.
Watch as more and more crowdfunding artists will put their work into the public domain after creation. Watch as more and more pirates are held accountable in ways that copyright could never begin to dream about.
With crowdfunding, if a pirate doesn't pay up, he has nothing to pirate. But with copyright, if a pirate doesn't pay up, he can get away with it.
(untitled comment)
Crowdfunding websites are the intellectual radicals here. They're not even aware of it themselves.
The arguments against Kickstarter have been laughably baseless. Remember how Amanda Palmer was attacked for a) promoting piracy of her works (which even copyright advocates have to say is within her rights to do so) and b)making too much money? I thought, "Well, there you have it. A system which can help people encourage piracy of their own works by essentially putting it in the public domain and still become filthy rich... and the copyright advocates just want to stick their fingers in their ears and yell 'I'm not listening!' Absolutely perfect."
The logical elegance of assurance contracts cannot be overstated here. Tickets, preordered content, crowdfunding, all of it has tons of evidence to back up a way of thinking that completely discredits copyright.
(untitled comment)
Paywalls do little to stop people from getting what they want without paying, are easy to walk around with the use of proxies, waste everybody's time and effort, and are fundamentally futile and self-ridiculing.
In fact, they are just about as useful as the U.S.'s Mexican border fence.
Copyright never ceases to be intellectually dishonest.
If this were crowdfunding, it'd be impossible for a label to oppress artists like this. The artists would have them by the balls.
Also, there would be no way for labels to cheat on royalties. The money would be there for all to see, and labels would have to pay their share: no excuses, no exceptions.
Assurance contracts intellectually trump everything here. Tickets, crowdfunding, all verifiable and backed up by evidence. With no human rights compromises.
Progress will be made... now that it can.
If you think it is bad now, just imagine how worse it would have been if Saddam Hussein was still in power. Or his two sadistic sons, Uday and Qusay Hussein.
Always remember: Middle Eastern revolutions gained inspiration and ground on the days that Saddam Hussein was tried for war crimes on TV for all to see. The U.S. mass media decided to keep all of that unreported for so long.
Remember how lots of people laughed at the "domino theory" and democracy being spread across the region? Well what do you call the mass toppling of dictators and huge spread of Arab Spring movements? That's what we on the Left call "destabilisation". We don't say it like it's a bad thing.
Getting rid of Saddam, the 1984-esque totalitarian dictator, was a move that was finally on the right side of history.
Re: Worry about something in your supposed economics, Mike:
Maybe if I just SHOUT my words LIKE this, that WILL give THEM MORE rationality and JUSTIFICATION. CAN I be TAKEN MORE seriously NOW that I am screaming SOME OF my SELECTED words at YOU?!
See, look what you've done. My throat now hurts. I was having fun.
Every notice how religious loonies do the same thing on the internet? If they just capitalise "GOD" enough times that will somehow make it true?
(untitled comment)
The Devil Wears Prenda.
(untitled comment)
Delusional nonsense.
Re: "one of the few actual victims" -- Right, if omit movie studios
I love how copyright believers "slant" the idea that copyright solves the free-rider problem and pretend that someone can't take from the artist without paying through means of borrowed/resold DVDs.