Matanya, thanks for your comment. It's perfectly ok with me if we continue in English.
Если Никита сказал что Вы идиот, значит надо внимательно Вас читат.
It seems that Nikita has actually done me a favour despite willing to do the opposite :)
My message was actually a bit "prophetic". I'm trying not to take any particular side of that argument (though I feel sympathy for both sides). Instead, I'm trying to analyse, what would naturally happen with the mixture of uncensored Internet and strong copyright protection laws.
Remember in "The Little Prince" by Saint-Exupery there was a king, who gave only the orders that were "obeyable" by his environment? I think here we get into a similar situation: if we know we can't stop something from happening, it is rather unwise to create a law for which there's no means to enforce it on people.
If the offence consists of selling stolen material goods, it is possible to physically stop the process. But if it is information which is being stolen, it is rather hard to stop, close to impossible. This follows from the volatility of information as such, but this volatility is multiplied manyfold if we speak about the Internet which is by its essence distributed and standartized.
So maybe we need completely different approach for dealing with information? Maybe information and money are truly incompatible/noninterchangeable? I fully understand the need of the artists to feed themselves and their dependants, but is it really that wise to make their wages dependent on the number of copies sold?
Well, we had a temporary solution in the framework of capitalism, but I have a strong feeling that the time of that solution is passing fast. Maybe we should face this problem anew, and try to find a better solution?
I'm not saying I've got a satisfactory solution. But the problem is definitely not a minor one. Sooner or later it will affect almost every professional.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2004-07-10 11:07 am (UTC)Если Никита сказал что Вы идиот, значит надо внимательно Вас читат.
It seems that Nikita has actually done me a favour despite willing to do the opposite :)
My message was actually a bit "prophetic". I'm trying not to take any particular side of that argument (though I feel sympathy for both sides). Instead, I'm trying to analyse, what would naturally happen with the mixture of uncensored Internet and strong copyright protection laws.
Remember in "The Little Prince" by Saint-Exupery there was a king, who gave only the orders that were "obeyable" by his environment? I think here we get into a similar situation: if we know we can't stop something from happening, it is rather unwise to create a law for which there's no means to enforce it on people.
If the offence consists of selling stolen material goods, it is possible to physically stop the process. But if it is information which is being stolen, it is rather hard to stop, close to impossible. This follows from the volatility of information as such, but this volatility is multiplied manyfold if we speak about the Internet which is by its essence distributed and standartized.
So maybe we need completely different approach for dealing with information? Maybe information and money are truly incompatible/noninterchangeable? I fully understand the need of the artists to feed themselves and their dependants, but is it really that wise to make their wages dependent on the number of copies sold?
Well, we had a temporary solution in the framework of capitalism, but I have a strong feeling that the time of that solution is passing fast. Maybe we should face this problem anew, and try to find a better solution?
I'm not saying I've got a satisfactory solution. But the problem is definitely not a minor one. Sooner or later it will affect almost every professional.