Re: in a quandry

["Peter T. Chattaway" <petert at interchange_ubc.ca>]

On Mon, 21 Jul 2003, Don Smith wrote:
> I don't think you're paying for 1s and 0s, you're paying for the right
> to listen to a song at your convenience.

Hmmm, and how does this square with, say, libraries?  It is *they* who pay
for the CD, and it is *we* who take the CD out and listen to it at our
convenience.

> Bootlegs notwithstanding, performers and venues have a right to expect
> compensation for their work in providing you with a chance for
> entertainment and/or inspiration.

Here, we disagree.  A performer certainly has the right to *demand*
payment in exchange for entertaining someone, but they do not have the
right to *expect* compensation regardless of whether they had secured it
in advance.  If they *do* have that right, then heck, *I* expect
compensation for all the entertainment that I have provided through my
e-mails and message-board posts over the years!  Pay up, folks!

> Copyright law (as I understand it) was originally put into place so that
> someone who had an idea could be protected from someone else who might
> not have an idea, but had the machinery to exploit that idea before the
> first person can capitalize on it.

And it was originally set up to last only 14 years or so -- long enough to
make a profit off the idea, but not so long that you never have to be
creative or industrious ever again.  Later legislation extended this to
something like 70 years after the creator's death, or something, which is
just insane -- like, the original _Star Wars_ trilogy is a part of our
*culture* now, a part of our collective *consciousness*, and the idea that
Lucas can still "own" the film 26 years later and prohibit us from ever
seeing it the way it was originally meant to be seen is just wrong.

> It doesn't always work, like when Paramount asked Joe Straczynski tons
> of questions about how his proposed space station show would work, and
> then said "sorry, we're doing our own space station show", and when Mr.
> Straczynski finally did get the funding to do Babylon 5, lots of people
> ironically labelled it a Deep Space Nine ripoff.  But I digress...

Heh.  The producers of _Lost in Space_ pulled a similar trick on Gene
Roddenberry, as I recall.

> I think the real problem is that government deregulation has led to
> massive media consolidation and megamergers.  If there were lots of
> little RIAA-type organizations, artists could choose which ones to go
> to, and thus competition would drive the market into terms more
> favorable to artists.

Anti-deregulation = sounds like a socialist.  Pro-competition = sounds
like a capitalist.  Gotta love it.  :)

--- Peter T. Chattaway --------------------------- peter at chattaway_com ---
Nothing tells memories from ordinary moments; only afterwards do they
   claim remembrance, on account of their scars. -- Chris Marker, La Jetee

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