Re: [dvd-discuss] Rhapsody in Blue and the death of Jazz

[Tom <tom(at)lemuria.org>]

On Sat, Jun 01, 2002 at 10:28:35PM -0400, Ernest Miller wrote:
> What chilling effect?  Should we abandon copyright entirely?

yes.

Given that I do hold quite a bunch of copyrights myself (a speech here,
an essay there, a few computer games and an unpublished work of
fiction) that may warrant some explanation:

It served it's purpose, but it is no longer adequate to the current
culture and is doing more harm than good.

I know no capable author who is motivated by copyright to be creative.
As a matter of fact, almost everything produced solely for commercial
reasons is utter crap and does nothing to promote science or arts.


And I believe you have been lied to. Copyright never protected the
authors as much as it protected the publishers.
You see, as an artist or science, my main concern is adequate credit.
If you copy my work, but give full credit to me, I may be a little
miffed that I don't get a buck, but I'm not by far as upset as if you'd
take it and call it yours.
And for the later, I don't need (C) - I'd call it fraud and take you to
court on that count.
You see, I don't lose anything. I lose a hypothetical income, a dollar
that may or may not have come into my pocket, but since it may just as
well have not, the loss is theoretical.

However the PUBLISHER, now he's someone who actually loses money to
unauthorized copying. Because he had to spend money on printing the
books.

So what is (C)? Not so much an incentive for authors to write something
(they'd do that anyway because creativity is a much stronger force than
greed), but for the publishers to take the financial risk.
Now I won't doubt that this isn't necessary. However, when you start
out with a lie, it's no surprise you don't see where the real problem
is.

Therefore, I come to the conclusion that we should abandon copyright.
Surely, it'll be only minutes before the MPAA, RIAA and other lobby
groups start lobbying for a new law. And if we get it right at that
point, if we can nail them down on what it's REALLY about at that time,
we just may get a law that isn't full of shit from start to finish.


-- 
New GPG Key issued (old key expired):
http://web.lemuria.org/pubkey.html
pub  1024D/2D7A04F5 2002-05-16 Tom Vogt <tom@lemuria.org>
     Key fingerprint = C731 64D1 4BCF 4C20 48A4  29B2 BF01 9FA1 2D7A 04F5