Put the leader of Sweden’s Pirate Party in the same room as a bunch of music industry executives and you can expect fireworks. That’s exactly what happened as the music industry seminar In The City began in Manchester today.
Opening this year’s event with a chance for a self-proclaimed pirate to discuss his manifesto was a controversial move. Rumour has it that one major label threatened to ban its staff from attending the debate.
The Pirate Party famously won a seat in the European Parliament earlier this year, but few know exactly what they stand for. In a speech grandly entitled ‘Shelters or Windmills’, leader Rick Falkvinge described his party as a “Civil liberties movement” aimed at protecting the privacy of citizens both online and offline.
He argued that music should be free, with money made by attaching additional value to it. He gave the example of Evian and Volvic – they do pretty well out of taking something free (water), bottling it and selling it at a profit. People can still get their water free if they choose.
When it comes to specific policies, they can be boiled down to this:
- Deep Packet Inspection and any other methods of ‘looking inside’ the data being transmitted by individuals is wrong, just like it’s illegal to intercept mail in the postal service.
- ISPs should be immune from prosecution for what’s sent through their networks, just like the postal service isn’t prosecuted for moving illegal drugs.
- Individuals have a right to privacy online and offline
- Copyright should only apply to commercial work – bedroom remixers and mashup artists shouldn’t have to ask permission to release their work unless they want to charge for it.
- Finally, and most controversially, copyright on any song, film or any other creative work should be just five years. That would mean artists would only be able to earn a living from their music for five years before the song became public property.
It’s this final point that caused a stir. Until then the on-stage panel and assembled music industry had listened politely. Most had actually agreed with much of what The Pirate Party was proposing, but only five years to make money from music? It was too much for Dave Smith, manager of artists including Mr Scruff, who angrily declared “If this was the middle ages I’d burn you at the stake”.
Medieval violence aside, it’s true that The Pirate Party’s policies do seem a little half-baked. While they supportl an individual’s right to copy music as much as they want, they haven’t thought much about how artists get paid.
When asked how musicians could make money once their five year copyright term had expired he replied that it was simply muscians’ “entrepreneurial challenge”. He may have a point to a degree, but it did smack a little of “We really don’t care”, with a vague notion that voluntary donations from fans will fill the gap.
One encouraging thing that became apparent during the panel debate was that there’s a growing view within the music industry that the only realistic way forward is to find a compromise between the desires of fans and the demands of the industry.
Maybe we’ll find a way out of this mess yet.
here’s a more relevant analogy from history:
Dinosaurs will die.
- NOFX
this says it all: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLZpxVI7Pa8
“how musicians could make money once their five year copyright term had expired”
um… could they make some more music perhaps? I, as a software engineer, have never expected to do some work and then get paid for it continuously until 50 years after I die, and oddly enough that’s never occurred. I generally do some work, get paid for it, then do some more the following day!
Hi Martin,
plenty of thought has gone into the issue of artists’ compensation, and it boils down to the fact, that in a market economy, it’s none of the lawmakers’ business.
In Soviet Russia, [cue joke here...] politicians were dictating how people were paid. We don’t do that.
What we have considered in setting the five-year suggestion (which is, by the way, about halfway between what various copyright reformers suggest — the Gowers Report saying nine years, a Netherlands professor suggesting one, with many more) is the fact that commercial copyright’s only valid role today is to protect investments in expensive culture, investments that otherwise wouldn’t get made.
Exactly nobody calculates a return on investment on a longer horizon than five years. Hollywood blockbusters tend to have a horizon on first week. In short, if you haven’t made your investment back in five years, the odds of you making so are so low that other interests in society take precedence.
That’s the responsibility of lawmakers, after all: weighing interests against one another.
As to how somebody makes or doesn’t make a living: that’s not our business.
As a side note: yes, the sentiment in the room of the executives was very emotional at times. I think those people would do themselves and their business a service to consider the fact that a majority of their primary customer demographic is voting for us, meaning their customers don’t just agree with us, but believe that our political message is more important than any other political message.
After all, it’s hard making a business by rejecting the values of your intended customers to the point of saying you’ll burn the people they vote for at the stake. :)
Cheers,
Rick
Hi Rick, thanks for the comment. I was surprised how good natured most of the session was – it only got a little heated when it came to the five year term issue.
It’s an interesting debate and one that I don’t think is going to be resolved any time soon.
Thanks for taking the time to come to Manchester. Good to see you made it out of the hotel alive :)
‘It’s an interesting debate and one that I don’t think is going to be resolved any time soon.’
It’s already been resolved.
‘Good to see you made it out of the hotel alive :)’
Inasmuch as you invited him, I hope you guaranteed his security. But I see you did not. Typical of you.
Sune, I didn’t invite him. I was there as an attendee.
Hello Rick !
I am very proud over may Party leader. Hope you like my car.
Pirat is pirate in Swedish
Regards, Urban
http://www.abc.se/~m6782/bil-skylt.jpg
Change ‘PASSAT’ to ‘PIRAT’. ;)
Just nu genomför Piratpartiet ett allmänt landsomfattande medlemsmöte. Samtidigt så hämtar partiet andan inför valrörelsen med slut den 19 september 2010.
Detta är ett val som måste ge Piratpartiet möjlighet att verka för ökat inflytande och respekt för medborgarna !
Studio ETT i Sveriges Radio 2009-10-20 :
Ett sju minuter och trettio sekunder (7:30) långt angeläget inslag om din medborgarrätt !
This comment was originally posted on Rick Falkvinge (PP)
The logo featured in the article is the one from the hatchling Pirate Party in the United States, though. Swedish Piratpartiet’s logotype is black and white with no star…
Thanks for pointing that out Aewheros – I’ve swapped it for a photo I took at the event.
När får vi läsa ditt tal “Shelters or Windmills”?
This comment was originally posted on Rick Falkvinge (PP)
japp, och var är video feeden från ditt tal ? =)
This comment was originally posted on Rick Falkvinge (PP)
Who made the water that Rick Falkvinge is referring to? I mean someone makes the music that he is comparing to water, so who created the water? If there wasn´t a creator of the actual water why would this comparison be of any use? and doesn’t Evian pay for the water they bottle? do they get it for free? or do they just take it?
With Rick Falkvinges logic any non-profit organisation would be able to digitally distribute any music-film-book of their liking since they would be doing it without profit – hence no money would be made from digital distribution unless it comes with a T-shirt or a coffee-cup. Rick and his parties arguments and rhetoric’s are most of time garbled, confused and at best pathetic.
Yes, someONE is making the music. That’s what makes is so much more valid. Draining up the water from wells takes many many people and lot’s of machinery. Then you have to get it checked for natural toxic that could harm people who drink it. Package it and have it shipped around the world. Music you need someone to make the music, somewhere to record it and someone to upload it to internet.
(Sure this is waterbotteling/musicmaking simplified but you see what I mean)
But do Evian pay for the water that they pump up – or doe’s Evian just take it?
I think yo know the answer, Evian pays for the water that they then bottle and distribute. Again it is a lame, week and pathetic comparison by any meassure.
I have no idea if Evian or any other waterbotteling companys pays for the water they pump up. But if they do it just makes Ricks example more valid. With all those costs they can still sell the water for profit even though the same water can be had from the tap.
Just cause there is a free version of the same product people will still buy it if it’s worth the money for them. Evian solved their issue by giving the bottles a “brand feel”.
I’m not saying the same applies to music publishers but it isn’t the politicians or the citizens job find a solution to their problem.
If they invested as much money in inventing new marketing ideas as they invest in hunting consumers they would have a desirable product out on the market today.
This is progress, with your argumentation you second that whoever use water belonging to a third party in order to repackage it and resell it should pay for their usage of the water. Good, so whoever re-package and repack music belonging to a third party should also pay for it. It is still a mystery to me who the creator of the water is – whereas most music has writers and performers creating it and let me tell you, it doesn’t flow in an endless river nor does it rain down from the heavens. Hence a nature resource as a comparison with man made objects is a poor and naive metaphor, but then again, naive is the nature of Falkvinge.
I think the point is that even though people can get perfectly fine drinking water essentially for free, they still buy bottled water for billions of Euro each year.
That goes a long way negating the proposition that free music distribution would make people not pay for music. But they won’t pay for little discs of plastic.
And bottled water went from nothing to a commercial success in less time than from Napster to now.
@Johan Tjader
Again, you miss the whole point of whom the water belongs to in the first place. The rest is irrelevant since the packaging, marketing of the water is all OK due to the very fact that Evian respects the original supplier and hence doesn’t infringe on any-ones rights what-so-ever. The problem is not packaging or marketing of something you have the right to do so with – the problem is when you re-package and re-market something you don’t have the right to.
If you take the water from your own patch of land it’s yours to take, if not, you either buy it from the state, in which case it belongs to the people, or from another landowner, say the Queen, all pending the regulations of course.
I think most of the point with the analogy is missed due to the fact that you need to live in a country where the bottling companies usually own their spring water. People who own their wells, readily understand the analogy though.
How about newspapers then? Metro International is one example. 20 million daily readers and 100% free.
Fact is that when even physical products can be distributed free due to technology, what about digital stuff? Those cost 0.01$ each to distribute digitally on a large scale. Why should I have to pay equally much or more to get a digital copy then one at the store, talking about for example games for PC.
Simple laws of supply & Demand at work here. If the supply is close to infinite, the only business model is to sell for prices close to zero, and instead make sure that everyone buys so many things that it all evens out anyway.
I’m not gonna buy less stuff if the prices dropped to 10%, I’m gonna buy 10times as much stuff.
However I guess none at the Intellectual property businesses have completed a course of basic elementary school economics…
Metro runs with a massive loss of 8.6 million euro for the last quarter. Again a week and lame reference in the world of PP make believe rhetoric. Metro isn’t much of a newspaper either, it is more of a newsabbreviation – they don’t have journalists in war zones, they don’t dig up news about corrupt politicians (nyheter24.se/nyheter/inrikes/289987-rickard-falkvinge-anklagas-for-jav) they only quote other newspapers, news organisations and journalists. And they make a huge loss doing so.
Simple laws of supply & demand is still ruled by simple laws such as: You don’t get the product if you don’t pay for it or if the owner would like to give it to you for free.
However I guess none of the PP disciples have completed a course of basic law… they just follow their leader in his logic mishap of reasoning…
@ Martin
Before you call anyone’s rhetoric’s for pathetic you would want to make sure that yours is bullet proof. It doesn’t matter whether the company buys the water from someone else or pumps it up themselves. People have water at home practically for free, but they still buy water on bottle. This is what Falkvinge is referring to. You can sell everything if it the package is right.
Why would there be a problem if someone distributed digital products non-commercially? As long as someone isn’t earning money on other peoples work there isn’t really a problem here.
And there you go…
“People have water at home practically for free”, but it is not for free, they do pay for it and the people distributing it pays for it as well. And again who made the water? If you want to compare it with music you need to explain who actually made the water. Music is not pouring down from the clouds, it is not found in wells. It is manmade and as such has an owner, if you like it you buy it, if you don’t like the owners terms, then don’t buy it. If you like the terms of an artist that use CC then you accept those terms. But you do not get to enforce CC terms on an artist that doesn’t agree with the CC for his/hers product.
Don’t compare a natural resource that isn’t created or manmade although purified and the bewildering idea that water today is for free is as bewildered as most of Falkvinges ideas and concepts.
“Why would there be a problem if someone distributed digital products non-commercially? As long as someone isn’t earning money on other peoples work there isn’t really a problem here.” Again a narrow minded trail of thoughts – since you like metaphors I’ll give you one. Any labourer doing any kind of job would be rather upset if you walked in and offered to their job for free, at the same time as you state “Hey I am not charging, whats the commotion, I am doing this non-commercially?”
@ Martin
”Practically free” doesn’t equal completely free. The cost of pouring up a bottle of water at home isn’t big enough to be relevant in this discussion. The water at home is practically for free and still people go and buy water in the stores. This is what Falkvinge was referring to and it shows that you can sell everything if the package is right.
About the relevance of ownerships. It doesn’t matter that water is a natural resource and that music isn’t. What matters is that you can get hold of both for free, but still there are people who pay for it if the package is right. When I talk about free here it’s of course practically free, we both knows there is tiny costs for both the water and the downloading of music, something that is totally irrelevant for this discussion.
I don’t see the point of your metaphor. Any labourer would get upset if someone comes along who can do the same job but cheaper. So what? Perhaps you could explain your point in a simple and meaningful way, and perhaps add an example to it?
Falkivinges metaphor”shows that you can sell everything if the package is right.” Why should anyone be allowed to sell things they don´t own or have the right to, no-matter what the package is like?
My metaphor is as bad and naive as Falkvinges but I’ll continue; if anyone would have the right to distribute other individuals products with no reimbursement to the original owner – you would have a situation similar to a labourer who’s agreement with his/hers employer would be terminated when you walk in offering your services for free, you are doing it non-commercially.
That would be a similar situation as when a non-commercial organisation on the webb would offer the distribution of music they don´t have the right to distribute.organisation on the webb would offer the distribution of music they don´t have the right to distribute.
That’s missing the point entirely.
Distributing music used to be inefficient or expensive unless you made it in the open and industrialized.
Now distributing music – or any other information – is cheap and is done from people’s homes.
Anything based on distribution being inefficient or expensive has to go. You still own the music, but you can’t count on making a profit on distributing it.
You can, however, make a profit performing it. That’s why artists, composers and lyric writers generally are not hurt by free distribution. Only a small portion of compensations comes from records. The major contribution comes from live concerts and broadcast rights.
@Johan Tjader
“You still own the music, but you can’t count on making a profit on distributing it” why should the owner of the music be forced to accept arbitrary distributors of his/hers music?
The point of these comments are that it is up to the owners to rule over their property – and if the owners doesn’t agree to whomever distribute what is rightfully and lawfully the owners, then it’s the owners choice and not anyone else’s.
When you use water as a metaphor you miss the most important part, everyone pays for the water no-mater how they get it or how they consume it or how it is packaged – the water is not taken or borrowed without due compensation to the involved parties. None has ever got the right to force the rightful owner of a product to sell the product for a specific price that is decided by the buyer. The only thing the buyer has the right to do, is to stand down from the intended purchase.
@ Martin
No one would be allowed to sell other persons works, only distribute it under certain conditions. I can’t see any problem with your labourer example. If someone can do something cheaper they will get the job instead. That’s generally how business works. If someone distributes files on the web non-commercially after a copyright reform they would actually have the right to do it, you can’t argue against that. I can’t see any real concerns in your arguments here.
“why should the owner of the music be forced to accept arbitrary distributors of his/hers music?”
Have you forgotten why copyright laws initially emerged? And whom it was supposed to benefit? It wasn’t the creator or rights holder, but the public. Copyright is a restriction in regular peoples right of possession. The question you should ask yourself is why should the owner of the music have full control of it’s every uses around the globe? How it’s played, when it’s played, to whom it’s played, etc? Physical products are considered being sold when they are sold, why shouldn’t it be the same with immaterial ones? Both types of products have other protections to ensure that the work itself remains a creation of the creator.
I have already explained why it’s completely useless to argue about the costs of distribution for water and music. And no buyer is forcing anyone to sell for a specific price here.
If you want to compare with the sales of water you would have to start with an example where the water being sold by a company, wasn’t paid for in the first place – you would then have a situation where the water company selling the bottled water would be sued by the people having the right to the water.
I can offer all products belonging to someone else cheaper than the owner since I haven’t had the original cost or invested labour-hours, but you know what – I don’t have the right to sell other peoples products no-matter how much cheaper I would sell it and the same thing applies to you and Falkvinge aka Dick Eriksson.thing applies to you and Falkvinge.
You don´t see the problem with someone taking you job by offering to do it for free? You are wonderful, that is illegal in most part of the world except for in banana plantations run by Dole. A labourer has an employment contract, a union representing him/her in order to stop wage dumping, you might not be aware of this? and you might not be aware of the struggle for decent wages that has been going on for about 150 years. But then again Falkvinge wants to force musicians, autors, filmmakers to give away their product for free since someone else can distribute it cheaper than the rightfull owner. A strange combination of a totalitarian dictatorship where the creator of a product no longer has the right decide how his/her product is sold.
@Kras
You are as wrong as with all your other logic misshaps when you say copyright was created to just benefit the consumer or society at large, when equaly was created to protect the copyright holder.
Or as Wikipedia writes:
“Since its inception, copyright is considered a property right and attempts to balance the rights of the producer with the rights of society at large.”
@ Martin
I don’t know why you keep repeating that nobody have the right to sell other peoples products. I can’t see anyone here saying otherwise.
Your labourer arguments keep being very odd. If someone is sharing a music file with another person they haven’t taken anyone’s job. If someone can’t get a job or keep a job because of declining profits caused by changes in the markets, well that’s an entire different thing. None of these things violates any employment contracts.
Falkvinge isn’t forcing anyone to give away their products for free, instead he forces them to adapt to the market and the information era. When the monopoly starts to interfere with peoples fundamental rights then you know it’s time to make a change. After all, the monopoly was granted for the good of the people. And the creator of the product would still have the choice of how the product will be sold, but their power against their customers after the sale decreases.
@ Martin
If you can’t beat anyone with logic arguments then you could attack their logic instead I suppose. Copyright was created to benefit the society at large. No monopoly would be granted if that wasn’t the case. The quote you pulled from Wikipedia fits well with what I’m saying.
Copyright was invented a little over a 100 years ago. It suited that time well. It does not now.
Stopping piracy used to be easy. Now it’s hard, and requires serious degradation of civil rights to succeed. The price of upholding a 19th century compensation system is getting more expensive every day. Why is maintaining the system more important to you than your civil rights?
ANY way for anyone to make profit out of intellectual or artistic achievements must be based on that prerequisite that information sharing can occur anywhere, anytime and there’s no stopping it.
You are also missing the point that the buyer of musical recording only buys the right to listen to the music, they never buy the right to distribute it. Much like leasing a car, you drive it – you use it, but it’s not yours unless you actually buy it.
So there is no “restriction in regular peoples right of possession” they never bought that right in the first place.
Actually you buy the right to listen to the music in the supplied format only, and you get the ‘fair use’ right to distribute it via non-commercial private copying, (which tend to mean just a hand full of people, i.e. your family,) per the usual added tax on recordable storage devices, which of course goes to the applicable collection society.
@ Martin
No I’m not missing any points here. You are only trying to describe how things work right now. Copyright is in fact a restriction in people’s right of possession. If you would remove copyright laws at this very moment people would suddenly be free to make copies and share the music they just bought, they would be allowed to play it at work without licenses, and so on.
@Kras
You are wrong when you state “Copyright is in fact a restriction in people’s right of possession.” People never had the right of possession of the immaterial rights of the music and they should never have the immaterial right to music written by someone else unless the writer would so agree. They do have the right to listen to it as much as they like.
You are also very-very-very wrong when you state “Have you forgotten why copyright laws initially emerged? And whom it was supposed to benefit? It wasn’t the creator or rights holder, but the public. “. That is just repeating what your mentor Rick usually says. Whereas Wikipedia states “copyright is considered a property right and attempts to balance the rights of the producer with the rights of society at large.”
@ Martin
If you would actually read what I wrote you would see that I have never said that regular people have owned the immaterial rights. What I have said though is that copyright is a restriction in people’s right of possession, and I have also explained why.
I have also already explained that your Wikipedia quote quite well supports what I have been saying the whole time. The balance they are speaking of is a balance that is meant to benefit the public. That’s the whole point with the creation of copyright. It was created to benefit the society as whole and thus they had to balance the newly created rights of the producer with the rights of regular people.
@Kras
Since regular people don’t own the immaterial right to other “copyright holders” music they never had the music in their possession in the first place and hence they never had the right to distribute it. And there has never been any “restriction in regular peoples right of possession” since they never had the possession of the immaterial right to the music in the first place.
@ Martin
Before copyright they had the right, after copyright it was restricted. It’s as simple as this. If you would remove copyright laws at this very moment people would be free to do many things with the music cds they purchase at the store, things you normally can do with material products. You aren’t looking at what effects copyright has on regular people’s rights.
I think you are confused about what I’m saying. When I talk about people’s right of possession it’s about the right of owning things. If I buy a product it should then be considered mine, with which I should be able to do almost what I want. Copyright puts a restriction on this.
Saying that regular people don’t share some immaterial rights with the rights holder does not equal saying they never had the rights to do things with the products they bought. It’s copyright that came with the restrictions. It’s not about a “possession of the immaterial right”, but instead it’s about the rights of possession as whole.
@Kras
People are free to do whatever they want with the product they bought i.e the plastic CD. They can burn it, use it as coaster etc. But they never did buy the immaterial right to the music, they bought the right to listen to the music – they can listen to it at home, with friends, they can re-mixit, play it under water, in the car or wherever they like to use it, but they can´t distribute the product.
And for your information that is the same when it comes to any product even if it is material – you are not entitled to distribute endless copies of a produkt like a bike or TV or a car or a radio or an Ipod just because you bought 1 sample of it. And the same is valid regarding the case of leasing things, like a car, or renting a hotel room – just because you rented it once – it doesn’t give you the right to share the room endlessly with your friends.
You seem very confused when it comes to immaterial rights and I really do believe you have a poor understanding of immaterial rights to begin with, just like Rick Falkvinge.
And by the way, if you removed the right to ownership of any product, people would be freee to many things with other peoples things. All purchases are done with rules, regulations and contracts, and it is never up to the buyer to stipulate how and what the seller should sell. It is however the buyers right to decline to buy at all.
@ Martin
They didn’t buy a plastic CD. They bought a music CD. If it weren’t for copyright they could take this music CD to work and play it there without anyone charging them a license fee. All the restrictions of people’s rights of possession are because of the copyright in this case.
You can’t compare physical products with immaterial ones. You physically can’t make endless copies of a physical product.
When you lease a car or rent a hotel room you borrow something against payment. That’s an entirely different thing. It’s a private agreement between two parties.
It’s funny to hear that I have a poor understanding of immaterial rights when you in fact don’t even know why it was created in the first place.
“And by the way, if you removed the right to ownership of any product, people would be freee to many things with other peoples things.”
That’s an entirely different thing than what we want to do. We want to change a monopoly that may have served its purpose before, but is in a need of a reform right now. The change we are talking about would actually increase people’s rights over the things they own.
“All purchases are done with rules, regulations and contracts, and it is never up to the buyer to stipulate how and what the seller should sell. It is however the buyers right to decline to buy at all.”
Nobody has suggested otherwise here. It’s the rules we want to change…
@Kras
The owner of the music is selling the music accordingly to to the his/hers right. They sell you the right to listen to the music and nothing else. And by the way, you can take your music to work and play it there, you can even play your own re-mixes of it.
You claim you want to change a monopoly – i.e you want to force the creator of a piece of music to sell it accordingly to your rules – you want to force someone to produce their product accordingly to you wiches – it sounds awfully totalitarian.
Are you having problems reading what other people write? I have never said stated that the owners don’t sell their music according to their current rights. It’s copyright that puts in the restrictions and it’s the copyright that we want to reform, so stop trying to use an description of how things works right now as a counterargument.
There are so many errors in your second paragraph so I don’t know where to start. The only thing you got right is that we want to change the monopoly. Like you stated earlier, all sales are regulated by laws in some way. We want to change to change one aspect of the copyright laws.
“i.e you want to force the creator of a piece of music to sell it accordingly to your rules”
Not my rules, the society’s rules. Every industry must adapt to the markets and regulations, that’s life.
“you want to force someone to produce their product accordingly to you wiches”
Not my wishes, society’s wishes.
“it sounds awfully”
It sounds like a regular democracy.
Huh, missed this one.
Nice one.
But, just because you have the right to do something in private, non profit wise, doesn’t mean that an organization gets to have the same right. (Come to think of it, in Sweden you can actually, with the current law still, share music legally, in a wider group, like a music club instead of a book club, and have the municipality state pay for the original records to boot. Obviously the Swedish record labels haven’t been ruined due to that fact.)
Libraries does it, already, they lend out books, music, and even movies, for pseudo free. And still the books sell, the music sell, the movies sell.
Christ, the whole VHS, and tape, and cheap copy machine, era was a complete smorgasboard of sharing, and still the content industry revenue went up, and up, and up, and their profit likewise. Why? Maybe because, even, if stuff is virtually free, enough people still feel the need to feel special, like owning an original. Just look at art, where there’s plenty of legal copies, yet every one wants the original.
“Who made the water that Rick Falkvinge is referring to? I mean someone makes the music that he is comparing to water, so who created the water? If there wasn´t a creator of the actual water why would this comparison be of any use?”
They’re non-scarce resources. Copying information has near zero cost; acquiring and purifying drinking water has near-zero cost.
If you want to make money off a non-scarce resource you can either use state-sponsored violence to enforce a monopoly and infringe on other people’s property rights(e.g. my ability to use my own piano to play various combinations of notes in public) or you can attach scarce resources to the non-scarce ones.
Real performances are scarce resources as there are few bands that can perform a particular song, especially when it is newly released, and fans want the real thing rather than a cover. Concerts attach scarcity(live performances by the real band) to the non-scarce resources(the song). If you’re a purely synthetic band like techno or whatever, you can appeal to your fans to donate so that you don’t have to get a real job producing non-scarce resources, this works because your ability to compose the kinds of techno your fans want is a scarce resource and your fans have an interest in keeping you employed. If your fans are worth their salt they might also be interested in signed copies(a real signature from the real artist is scarce).
Labour doesn’t entitle you to any new property rights. If you make a statue out of a block of marble you own the statue because you owned the block of marble. Unowned resources become owned through a process of homesteading. What intellectual property rights do is infringe on real property rights; If I own a CNC machine there are certain shapes I may not create without permission lest I incur the wrath of the state. If I own a computer there are certain strings of ones and zeros I cannot process.
Not only is this infringement of property rights a moral issue; monopolies stiffle competition. This is merely a nuissance in the case of music; in the case of patents it’s a life an death issue. A particularly egrigious example is Watt’s steam engine; he invented a separate condenser and had it patented. During the next three decades Watts prevented any and all improvements to the steam engine by means of the legal system. During the 25 years following the expiry of the patent on the separate condensor principle the fuel efficiency of steam engines increased by a factor of 5 and production of steam engines exploded. Watts could have used a cheaper flywheel and crank for his steam engine, but patents prevented him and he had to invent an expensive and inefficient “sun and planet gear” to emulate its function.
If there is no patent system your incentive is to use your head start to the full advantage; you want to produce your new invention as fast as possible, you want to improve your process for producing it or improve your invention before competitors catch up with you. This is exactly what society wants inventors to do.
@Kras
The owner of the music is selling the music accordingly to to the his/hers right. They sell you the right to listen to the music and nothing else. And by the way, you can take your music to work and play it there, you can even play your own re-mixes of it.
You claim you want to change a monopoly – i.e you want to force the creator of a piece of music to sell it accordingly to your rules – you want to force someone to produce their product accordingly to you wiches – it sounds awfully totalitarian.
Are you having problems reading what other people write? I have never said stated that the owners don’t sell their music according to their current rights. It’s copyright that puts in the restrictions and it’s the copyright that we want to reform, so stop trying to use an description of how things works right now as a counterargument.
There are so many errors in your second paragraph so I don’t know where to start. The only thing you got right is that we want to change the monopoly. Like you stated earlier, all sales are regulated by laws in some way. We want to change to change one aspect of the copyright laws.
“i.e you want to force the creator of a piece of music to sell it accordingly to your rules”
Not my rules, the society’s rules. Every industry must adapt to the markets and regulations, that’s life.
“you want to force someone to produce their product accordingly to you wiches”
Not my wishes, society’s wishes.
“it sounds awfully”
It sounds like a regular democracy..
“If you want to make money off a non-scarce resource you can either use state-sponsored violence to enforce a monopoly and infringe on other people’s property rights(e.g. my ability to use my own piano to play various combinations of notes in public) or you can attach scarce resources to the non-scarce ones.”
Or you can use agreements, rules, contracts and law as we do with all transactions. Scarcity has nothing to do with the rights to music, that is once again a PP delusion just as simplicity regarding copying of music has nothing to do with copyright. If simplicity was to be the measurement for laws we would be in deep shit.
“If there is no patent system your incentive is to use your head start to the full advantage; you want to produce your new invention as fast as possible, you want to improve your process for producing it or improve your invention before competitors catch up with you. This is exactly what society wants inventors to do.”
Or you don’t do anything at all since the possibility you loosing you invested money is bigger than making money. So you stay passive instead.
“Or you can use agreements, rules, contracts and law as we do with all transactions.”
That is a very strange argument. What Soylent did was explaining two opposite ways of making money on non-scarce resources. His first example was in fact one that involves regulation by law, i.e. granting someone a monopoly. Your example is his first example…
“Scarcity has nothing to do with the rights to music, that is once again a PP delusion just as simplicity regarding copying of music has nothing to do with copyright. If simplicity was to be the measurement for laws we would be in deep shit.”
Of course it has. Have you ever thought about why copyright was created in the first place? The printing presses were a scarce resource. If we grant a monopoly for this reason we can as easily take it back when it’s no longer needed. Monopolies are generally not good and should only be granted or kept for very good reasons.
“Or you don’t do anything at all since the possibility you loosing you invested money is bigger than making money. So you stay passive instead.”
If you don’t do anything you will always be a step behind. In every line of products you will see details that differ, some products have a better design then others, some have better performance then others, etc. This has very little to do with patents. Companies will aim to improve their products because of the competition.
@Kras
The copycat won’t be a step behind since anyone in Rick and your wet-dream-society can produce identical products and since the C.C never had the developing costs in the first place – the C.C will be one step ahead since C.C’s capital can be used to market, distribute and hey – give away loads of products for free as advertising.
And you are constantly claiming false things when it comes to why and how the creation of copyright came about. Yet another PP and Falkvinge trademark.
Companies will always try to minimise costs and maximise profit, the once that doesn’t seem to fail.
@ Martin
” The copycat won’t be a step behind since anyone in Rick and your wet-dream-society can produce identical products and since the C.C never had the developing costs in the first place – the C.C will be one step ahead since C.C’s capital can be used to market, distribute and hey – give away loads of products for free as advertising.”
Your whole argument falls at the fact that there is protection against such behaviour. You simple aren’t allowed to create identical products and call it your own.
“And you are constantly claiming false things when it comes to why and how the creation of copyright came about. Yet another PP and Falkvinge trademark.”
You keep saying that, but you are doing a very poor job proving me wrong. On the contrary you are very good at name-calling and label people.
“Companies will always try to minimise costs and maximise profit, the once that doesn’t seem to fail.”
What’s your point here? A whole paragraph stating that companies seeks profit, but no context?
@Kras
And finally.
If “society” would be silly and foolish enough to actually vote Dick Augustson aka Rick Falkvinge into the parliament, I would adhere to whatever legislation that was legislated as opposed to those who happily break the law today.
@ Martin
“If “society” would be silly and foolish enough to actually vote Dick Augustson aka Rick Falkvinge into the parliament, I would adhere to whatever legislation that was legislated as opposed to those who happily break the law today.”
If society wants a different legislation then you how come it’s society that is silly and foolish? Are you the one who defines what is silly and foolish? Are you the person that everyone else should form their opinions after?
While we are talking about silliness I can add that your attempts to discredit Falkvinge by not using his real name are something that I consider being silly and plain useless. Also the pointless attempt to mention people who break laws in the same sentence makes one wonder what you are referring to. We are not discussing people who break laws here.
Very good post here. I agree 100%.
I was of course referring to Soylent´s comment.
Who created the tones? I mean, the tones the composer/artist uses to create their product?? Who owns them?
Så beslutades FRA-lagen i onsdags:
Nu ska du avlyssnas!
This comment was originally posted on Rick Falkvinge (PP)
Herr Lustigkurre som ville bränna dig på bål missar en liten men viktig detalj. Straffet för ocker var hängning. Han hade bara fått en lite högre utsiktsplats över ditt bål om ni möttes på medeltiden, för det finns ingen chans att folk då skulle gå med på de genomfalska villkor som rättighetsjönsarna mutat till sig.
This comment was originally posted on Rick Falkvinge (PP)
‘Medieval violence aside, it’s true that The Pirate Party’s policies do seem a little half-baked.’
Vilken idiot.
This comment was originally posted on Rick Falkvinge (PP)
‘they haven’t thought much about how artists get paid’
Det är inte deras problem.
This comment was originally posted on Rick Falkvinge (PP)
‘One encouraging thing that became apparent during the panel debate was that there’s a growing view within the music industry that the only realistic way forward is to find a compromise between the desires of fans and the demands of the industry.’
Vilka genier! LOL
This comment was originally posted on Rick Falkvinge (PP)
You people always act as if the world owes you a living. And more than living: riches. The world owes you *nothing*. It’s not our fault you can’t market something people are willing to pay for. And we are *sick and tired* of you ranting like spoiled infants solely because you can’t come up with any good ideas.
Music is booming. The worldwide music industry is making more money than ever before. It’s only the record companies who are hurting. If you’d not so totally alienated yourselves through your medieval behaviour these past ten years, you might get some sympathy. But you’ve long ago shown what creeps you really are. You don’t represent your artists in any sense anymore. Your business is gone – and thank goodness for that.
Här var Martin Bryant’s hemsida.
http://14sandwiches.com/about/
This comment was originally posted on Rick Falkvinge (PP)
Rolling Stones are the richest musicians in *history*. Haven’t had a big seller album in over 20 years. They make all their money off touring. Ask the big acts from yesteryear: tours were run at a loss until the record company bean counters figured out how to make money. And that happened *a long time ago*.
Today records are made to promote tours, not the other way around. Today the record companies know they’ve been cut out and so are renegotiating their artist contracts *so they get 50% of the tour revenues*.
They know the story; they know the score; but they’re all like Malagant – they’ll bully anyone to get their way. And today they own a *controlling share* in Spotify – which they got for a song.
Don’t believe the people in the entertainment industry. They’re no better than organised crime. And they’re never telling the truth. Feed them to the dogs. They deserve no better.
Do check out Martin Bryant’s own website. If you want to see just how clueless and lame someone can be online. He’s got TENS of THOUSANDS of spam comments and seems helpless to do anything about it. He’s posted two articles in the past half year. And he’s going to lecture people about the web and how to live on it?
What a pathetic loser.
http://14sandwiches.com/about
Hi Sune, true I do have a lot of spam comments on there, mostly posted since I stopped posting at the blog because I started posting here.
The spam used to be hidden from public view thanks to the Disqus plugin but that appears to have stopped working. Thanks for flagging it up (even abuse can be helpful sometimes!) I’ll sort it now.
Oh, and I’m not lecturing anyone, just giving my view. It’s just as valid as yours.
Sorry – but Martin Bryant’s an AWARD-WINNING blogger? What award? OMG LOL WTF. Spammers Haven award? Award for terminal cluelessness? Check out his site! What a joke.
http://14sandwiches.com/about
OMG! De vill fjutta eld på Rick!
This comment was originally posted on Rick Falkvinge (PP)
ja vad sager man
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/tayside_and_central/8317952.stm
This comment was originally posted on Rick Falkvinge (PP)
reaktionerna hade varit mildare om de hade förstått att det fortfarande går att tjäna pengar även fast copyrighten har gått ur. Vad jag vet så upphör inte försäljningen bara för att en fiktiv tidperiod går ut. Ett enkelt exempel är alla 1800-talsböcker som jag läst och vars författare hade tjänat på mig om de fortfarande hade levat och även fast dem är i public domain.
This comment was originally posted on Rick Falkvinge (PP)
@Martin Bryant
Is a recording availible of this music industry seminar?
Hi Dennis, I don’t think so – yet. Keep checking http://www.inthecity.co.uk and they may put something up.
Det var en beskrivning exakt på pricken, utom möjligen att du är lagstiftare, men det kan ju ändras.
This comment was originally posted on Rick Falkvinge (PP)
Om musikindustrin har jag själv tänkt och skrivit en del HÄR – och en annans blänkare om fildelningen förtjänster finns HÄR – hälsar Josef
This comment was originally posted on Rick Falkvinge (PP)
Jag läste någonstans att du ska göra en sverigeturné i november. Behöver du en sovplats när du är i Skåne, delar jag gärna med mig av min säng.
This comment was originally posted on Rick Falkvinge (PP)
Jag läste någonstans att du ska göra en sverigeturné i november. Behöver du en sovplats när du är i Skåne, delar jag gärna med mig av min säng.
PS. Denna gång med rätt bloggadress.
This comment was originally posted on Rick Falkvinge (PP)
Oj, jag förstår inte varför jag inte har sett fler reaktioner på detta. Det var ett alldeles lysande tal som jag tycker förtjänas att lyftas fram. Mer sån’t!
Jag kan förstå några av “PP Supporter”s reservationer, men huvudpoängen som jag ser det är ändå synsättet att musikindustrin har två olika kunder. Det är ett mycket bra sätt att formulera det på som kan leda diskussionen framåt.
This comment was originally posted on Rick Falkvinge (PP)
Apropå ingenting:
Rick, du ondgjorde dig över SJs krav på legitimation för att åka tåg. Igår fick jag ett paket levererat mot postförskott men kunde tyvärr inte hämta det eftersom Postens ombud krävde legitimation (vilket jag inte ens har) för att lämna ut det.
Efter ett samtal med Posten fick jag veta att det rör sig om nya krav i år, med syftet att öka deras skydd mot bedrägerier. Damen på kundsjänst förklarade också att det inte heller finns något alternativ som möjliggör försändelser till oss som saknar legitimation eftersom avsändaren inte kan be att få slippa bedrägeriskyddet.
Nu är man väl inte särskilt anonym när man hämtar ut ett paket som är adresserat till ens bostad, men det känns rätt tråkigt att inte ens kunna *ta emot* paket från Posten bara för att jag saknar leg – något jag inte kunde föreställa mig skulle behövas vid postförskott eftersom betalning sker först vid uthämtning.
För min egen del blev det ett samtal till leverantören för att be om leverans via DHL. Länge leve den fria marknaden!
This comment was originally posted on Rick Falkvinge (PP)
Sen när har Posten rätt att neka leverans av försändelser?
This comment was originally posted on Rick Falkvinge (PP)
@Martin
In response to kras you are again missing the point. People have in their possesion a bearer with content, whether it is a computer file, a DVD or cd. They can easily share this content by copying. They loose nothing by doing so.
A right is nothing unless it is enforced. What possible gain would we have by enforcing the monopoly to copy content, when that option is available to everybody at no cost?
9 dagar sen senaste post. Hoppas han är OK.
This comment was originally posted on Rick Falkvinge (PP)
That would be sweet!
This comment was originally posted on TheNextWeb.com