From fork-admin@xent.com Wed Aug 28 10:50:03 2002 Return-Path: Delivered-To: zzzz@localhost.netnoteinc.com Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by phobos.labs.netnoteinc.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id E8BC743F99 for ; Wed, 28 Aug 2002 05:49:37 -0400 (EDT) Received: from phobos [127.0.0.1] by localhost with IMAP (fetchmail-5.9.0) for zzzz@localhost (single-drop); Wed, 28 Aug 2002 10:49:37 +0100 (IST) Received: from xent.com ([64.161.22.236]) by dogma.slashnull.org (8.11.6/8.11.6) with ESMTP id g7RIKgZ20480 for ; Tue, 27 Aug 2002 19:20:43 +0100 Received: from lair.xent.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by xent.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4E9BD2940C3; Tue, 27 Aug 2002 11:18:09 -0700 (PDT) Delivered-To: fork@example.com Received: from smtp1.superb.net (smtp1.superb.net [207.228.225.14]) by xent.com (Postfix) with SMTP id C557E2940C3 for ; Tue, 27 Aug 2002 11:17:58 -0700 (PDT) Received: (qmail 1107 invoked from network); 27 Aug 2002 18:19:59 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO maya.dyndns.org) (165.154.190.88) by smtp1.superb.net with SMTP; 27 Aug 2002 18:19:59 -0000 Received: by maya.dyndns.org (Postfix, from userid 501) id 16A5F1C388; Tue, 27 Aug 2002 13:49:26 -0400 (EDT) To: Mike Masnick Cc: "Adam L. Beberg" , Tom , Subject: Re: The GOv gets tough on Net Users.....er Pirates.. References: <5.1.1.6.0.20020826113243.034de5d0@techdirt.com> From: Gary Lawrence Murphy X-Home-Page: http://www.teledyn.com Organization: TCI Business Innovation through Open Source Computing Message-Id: Reply-To: Gary Lawrence Murphy X-Url: http://www.teledyn.com/ MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Sender: fork-admin@xent.com Errors-To: fork-admin@xent.com X-Beenthere: fork@example.com X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.11 Precedence: bulk List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Id: Friends of Rohit Khare List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: Date: 27 Aug 2002 13:49:25 -0400 >>>>> "M" == Mike Masnick writes: M> In which world are we talking about? That may be true for the M> first sale, but once something is out in the world, the M> "creator" loses control... If I buy a chair you built, and then M> decide to give it away to my neighbor, by you're definition, he M> just stole from you. I don't endorse the whole RIAA thing, but to be accurate, you would have to duplicate the chair so that both you and your neighbour could continue to sit down, and yes, I suppose that would be more serious. They can sit on /your/ copy, but if you start churning out exact dups of a name-brand artifact, people with law degrees start to smell money. For example, I could copy a Gibson Guitar /exactly/ so long as (a) I don't put Orville's name on the headstock and (b) I license the patented bracing methods. If I instead try to sell a homebuilt guitar on eBay with "Gibson" written in crayon on the headstock, and then claim it is a true Les Paul limited edition, I expect people would get upset. M> Why is it that people don't understand that giving stuff away M> is a perfectly acceptable tactic in capitalist businesses? To play the Devil's Advocate here, it's not about giving /stuff/ away, it is about granting endless and cascading duplication/distribution rights. Even if _I_ only make the copy I give to you, that doesn't stop you from making 10000 copies to sell. M> Access to free stuff often helps to sell other stuff. This is the difficult question: How will they draw the distinction? The "other stuff" is just as easy to duplicate as the free stuff. This is why MS is hunting people with illegal Windows; it's no harder to dup than a Linux CD, only what is there that actually prevents people from doing it? Personally, I don't think the issue should have anything to do with sales or units. The issue is that basic phallacy that says a suit should be able to "own" someone else's intellectual property. Sarah McLaughlin isn't suing you, it's her label's legal dept because it's the label who stands to lose; Sarah's already fat beyond her wildest dreams, so a few bucks here or there, or even if the well dried up tomorrow, it's not going to really traumatize her (unless she's been blazingly stupid with her money) But the label ... like Disney and Mickey, they need the cash cow so they can keep all sorts of uncreative hangers-on in limos and coke. If you thought only Elvis or Brian Jones or Dennis Wilson had problems with beautiful-people deadbeat leech "friends" draining their riches, think again. The problem is really very simple because it is semantic, and until we make the semantic flip, it's unsolvable, but like trisecting an angle, all it takes is looking at the same situation in a different way. Here's the revelation: Elvis never ever made a hit record. Elvis didn't make the hits, his /fans/ made the hits. His fans did the work cleaning toilets, manning the convenience stores, driving milk trucks, sitting at endless office desks, they did the /real/ labour that paid for every last one of Elvis Presley's pills. All Elvis did was sing into a microphone every so often, and pen or collect the odd song that all those /people/ liked and wanted as something of their own. But it's not _Elvis_ who made them universal statements, it is the universe of fans who slurped the songs into their own lives, it was pull-technology, not push. Therefore the question becomes: how many times must these fans pay before they own what they themselves have created? They pay royalties for listening to the radio, for blank tapes, for concert tickets, for a beer in a bar with a cover band ... they pay over and over and over again for the /right/ to make some hack writer's song /their/ favourite song???? That's where the whole system has been seriously warped by the record companies and ad companies reframing it into your thinking that it is the Elvis who makes the Elvis. It's not. It's the people who make them; the songs are already theirs. -- Gary Lawrence Murphy TeleDynamics Communications Inc Business Advantage through Community Software : http://www.teledyn.com "Computers are useless. They can only give you answers."(Pablo Picasso)