Crosbie Fitch 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: It Is Time To Stop Pretending To Endorse The Copyright Monopoly

    Crosbie Fitch ( profile ), 05 Jan, 2012 @ 02:45pm

    Re: Explain

    Pretty straightforward really. The artist offers to work for money. The artist's fans offer their money in exchange for the artist's work. When they come to agree each other's offer they do the deal: art for money, money for art.

    Making copies comes afterwards, and with a free market those copies will be at market rates (in the case of digital copies that's roughly $0).

    A free market in copies is a problem for manufacturers of copies at monopoly protected prices. It's not a problem for artists or their audiences.

    Weep for the immortal publishing corporations. Do not weep for the poor starving artists they pretend to represent.

  • On the post: It Is Time To Stop Pretending To Endorse The Copyright Monopoly

    Crosbie Fitch ( profile ), 05 Jan, 2012 @ 01:17pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Actually

    Of course, but until/unless licensed, all patented technologies are effectively prohibited.

    The Vatican was canny in predicting that greed would make licensing fees prohibitive for all but the largest multinationals - who still end up in court for millions through having not paid license fees.

    To make censorship seem like a good idea you just say it's to protect the children. To make a literary monopoly seem like a good idea you just say it's to feed poor starving artists. To make a patent seem like a good idea you just say it's to persuade inventors to let the rest of the world have access to their amazing gadgets and discoveries.

    A big problem with monopolies and other state suppression of individual liberty is that it's far to easy to hoodwink the masses into believing that these things are in their own best interest.

  • On the post: It Is Time To Stop Pretending To Endorse The Copyright Monopoly

    Crosbie Fitch ( profile ), 05 Jan, 2012 @ 11:39am

    Re: Re: Re:

    There's nothing wrong with buying or selling DVDs. The problem with copyright is that it annuls the people's right to make copies of the DVDs they buy to give or sell to others.

    In the not too distant future, when copyright has been abolished, audiences will pay for movies to be produced, and the market for DVD copies will be a free one. Fine for actors and audiences, cameramen and cinemas, but not so good for the monopolists in the MPAA.

  • On the post: It Is Time To Stop Pretending To Endorse The Copyright Monopoly

    Crosbie Fitch ( profile ), 05 Jan, 2012 @ 11:26am

    Re: Re: The time for abolition is nigh!

    I must get round to continuing our thread on http://c4sif.org sometime - that yuletide interrupted. I trust you had a merry one. :)

  • On the post: It Is Time To Stop Pretending To Endorse The Copyright Monopoly

    Crosbie Fitch ( profile ), 05 Jan, 2012 @ 11:01am

    Re: RE Seriously?

    Well, Mike has yet to come off the fence of copyright agnosticism.

  • On the post: It Is Time To Stop Pretending To Endorse The Copyright Monopoly

    Crosbie Fitch ( profile ), 05 Jan, 2012 @ 10:51am

    Re: Re: Actually

    Every nation's patent legislation effectively creates a registry of prohibited designs, medicines, and technologies.

    If the Vatican had wanted to hold back mankind's scientific and technological progress then patent law would have been an excellent way to do it... hmmm... maybe the Vatican IS behind patent law? Dan Brown?

  • On the post: The Insanity Of Copyright Law: When Even Professionals Have No Idea They're Breaking The Law

    Crosbie Fitch ( profile ), 05 Jan, 2012 @ 01:17am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: It's not broken

    You can suggest it, but it would be helpful if you also suggested precisely how our definitions differ. Given you believe they "are light years apart" it should be pretty easy.

    For the purposes of argument take my definition of 'charter' as 2a and/or 2c from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/charter

    For your reference see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rights_of_Man#Arguments

    Can you define what you believe Thomas Paine meant by 'charter', and why you feel such things as the Statute of Anne and the US Constitution did not meet that definition?

  • On the post: The Insanity Of Copyright Law: When Even Professionals Have No Idea They're Breaking The Law

    Crosbie Fitch ( profile ), 04 Jan, 2012 @ 03:34pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: It's not broken

    To paraphrase Thomas Paine: "The right to copy a work is inherently in all the inhabitants; but charters, by annulling that right, in the majority, leave the right, by exclusion, in the hands of a few. The privilege of copyright is consequently an instrument of injustice."

    William Patry cannot help but betray his recognition that the right to copy is natural, and that the Statute of Anne that annuls it is the unnatural interloper. No-one can know as much about copyright as he does and stop the truth of its corruption spilling from his pen.

    "To deny people the right to copy, intimately, from others, is to deny the essence of what it is to be a creative person."

    Copyright is coming to an end.

  • On the post: The Insanity Of Copyright Law: When Even Professionals Have No Idea They're Breaking The Law

    Crosbie Fitch ( profile ), 04 Jan, 2012 @ 11:52am

    Re: Re: Re: It's not broken

    When you've eliminated the impossible, then what remains, no matter how unthinkable, must be the right course of action.

    But, not only should copyright be abolished, but it should never have been enacted in the first place. See: Questioning Copyright.

    Even William Patry (with my persistent nudging) has had to conclude that "To deny people the right to copy, intimately, from others, is to deny the essence of what it is to be a creative person."

  • On the post: A Million Dollar Record Deal Is Probably Not What You Think It Is

    Crosbie Fitch ( profile ), 02 Oct, 2011 @ 03:26pm

    Re: Re: Sell music - NOT copies

    Selling music: "I'll play a tune & sing a song if you pay me $5000"

    Selling a music recording: "I'll produce a recording of my music for $100"

    Selling copies: "I'll make copies of the recording for you at $1 each, but as you've already bought the recording you can probably make your own copies more cheaply"

  • On the post: Facebook Hosts 4% Of All Photos Ever Taken In History

    Crosbie Fitch ( profile ), 27 Sep, 2011 @ 09:47am

    Re: Purpose of copyright

    The Constitution neither mentions copyright, nor specifies that the privilege should be granted. It only says that Congress shall have power to secure to authors the exclusive right to their writings.

    That this clause empowers Congress to grant the privilege of copyright (viz the Statute of Anne) is simply indoctrination. It's mere mantra - falsehood as if fact.

  • On the post: France: Copyright Is More Important Than Human Rights

    Crosbie Fitch ( profile ), 08 Sep, 2011 @ 10:40am

    Re: Re: Re: Copyright is a human right

    Yes, this "Copyright is a monopoly for authors' rather than printers' benefit" is an intriguing myth, no doubt created along the same lines as 'Think of the starving artists!'.

    If the Stationers' Company wanted Queen Anne to reinstate their monopolies (if not restore to them their exclusive control over all printing) they would have the cunning to portray their granting as not at all in their own interests, but in the interests of the laity, or perhaps the poor starving authors...

    That every original work has an author, and to be practical, reproduction monopolies must be granted per original work, conveniently entails that monopolies appear to be granted to each author (instead of to each work). It is thus easy to portray the monopoly as intended for the author and their beenfit, not the publisher destined to exploit it (having the potency the author lacks).

    Why do you think most artists signed to record labels never recoup their advances? The monopoly isn't intended for the artist, but the publisher geared up to exploit it.

    If copyright was intended for the author it wouldn't be transferable, and it would be policed by the state.

  • On the post: Europe's Copyright Strategy: Have Europeans Send As Much Money As Possible To US Companies

    Crosbie Fitch ( profile ), 07 Sep, 2011 @ 01:36pm

    Re: The moral side

    Copyright is a creature of commercial interest on the part of publishers, and of an interest in controlling public communications on the part of the state.

    The argument against copyright is an ethical one first, and an economic one second (monopolies are counter-productive and far more expensive to society than a free market).

    Moral rights, unlike the privilege of copyright, derive from the natural rights pertaining to intellectual works, so yes, they have an ethical or moral basis.

    See http://culturalliberty.org/blog/index.php?id=276

  • On the post: Europe's Copyright Strategy: Have Europeans Send As Much Money As Possible To US Companies

    Crosbie Fitch ( profile ), 07 Sep, 2011 @ 11:13am

    There is no "moral" in the argument

    One way to get out of that mess, is to take the "moral" argument out of the copyright debate, and focus in on what really matters: the economics


    There's very little 'moral' aspect to the argument these days, that's the problem. If anything it's egregiously absent.

    What really matters is the ethics. The economics will sort themselves out. Human rights come first. Anachronistic privileges in the form of 18th century reproduction monopolies come last. It's not as if mankind is unable to cope with a free market.

    We should stop fining, bankrupting, extorting, imprisoning, and extraditing people for infringing a state granted monopoly - not because it's uneconomic, but because it's unethical!

  • On the post: Should Anonymity Be Dealt With Differently In Copyright Cases Than In Defamation Cases?

    Crosbie Fitch ( profile ), 07 Sep, 2011 @ 01:05am

    Anonymous is a priori not culpable

    All anonymous statements are equipotential, i.e. "X is a liar" and "X is not a liar". All an anonymous author does is present a statement for consideration on its intrinsic merits, i.e. without any weight lent to it by the author's reputation.

    Because an anonymous statement has no weight (or has equal weight to its equipotential adjuncts) neither the statement nor its author can be culpable for its consequences (the reader is solely responsible for their actions).

    Another way of looking at it is that anonymous statements have as much weight as a computer's statements. Either they have intrinsic merit or they are vacuous.

  • On the post: France: Copyright Is More Important Than Human Rights

    Crosbie Fitch ( profile ), 06 Sep, 2011 @ 02:53pm

    Re: Copyright is a human right

    You can try and misrepresent copyright as a human right, but such things do not arise because Queen Anne thinks her Stationers' Company deserve to have their monopolies back.

    If you need the power of the state to threaten anyone who sings your songs, tells your stories, or copies your photos, then this is a big clue it's not a human right. Human rights arise through the nature of the individual, not arbitrary laws the crown or state think might be lucrative.

  • On the post: France: Copyright Is More Important Than Human Rights

    Crosbie Fitch ( profile ), 06 Sep, 2011 @ 02:42pm

    Re: Re: translation from my french coworker - not at all interpreted right from translate

    It's not just you.

    I'll add that copyright doesn't remove our natural/human right to copy, it only annuls its recognition in law - an 18th century privilege that supersedes our primordial cultural liberty.

    It's time the people stopped recognising copyright altogether, and just enjoyed their natural liberty to share and build upon their own culture.

    France should be Questioning Copyright, not questioning human rights.

  • On the post: The Patent Pledge: Good Idea… But Wrong Target

    Crosbie Fitch ( profile ), 06 Sep, 2011 @ 02:26am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Compulsory Licensing

    less than* $100k income/turnover are limited to liability for damages at $10k per annum.

    None of these are improvements. They are unprincipled palliatives that serve only to perpetuate injustice.

    You do not improve a turd by giving it a polish and a sugar coating. You take it off the menu!

    People have got to deprogram themselves of the fairy tale that patent once worked to incentivise invention and bring about the industrial revolution, and can thus be repaired to do so once more. It never did! Correlation is not causation. If an inventor is worth rewarding, the free market will reward them. Patent is an impediment, a parasite on progress that enriches the monopolist and the corrupt statesmen who grant them.


    * I first tried the 'less than' character, but that lost the 2nd half of my comment. I then tried ampersand lt;, but that also truncated it.

  • On the post: The Patent Pledge: Good Idea… But Wrong Target

    Crosbie Fitch ( profile ), 06 Sep, 2011 @ 02:25am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Compulsory Licensing

  • On the post: The Patent Pledge: Good Idea… But Wrong Target

    Crosbie Fitch ( profile ), 06 Sep, 2011 @ 02:15am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Compulsory Licensing

    1) Leave torture the way it is, or 2) It is improved such that suspects can only be tortured on weekdays between 9am-5pm.

    1) Leave slavery the way it is, or 2) It is improved such that slaves have free healthcare.

    1) Leave copyright the way it is, or 2) It is improved such that the maximum payable fine/prison term per annum by an infringer is $10k/6 months.

    1) Leave patent the way it is, or 2) It is improved such that individuals/companies with

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