Posts by Mark Harris
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Beg your pardon? Have you turned on emule or kazaa or napster in the last ten years? See where it says numbers of users, and numbers of files shared at any one time? Bittorrent doesn't do that because they don't like to boast, but you can look on any of the search sites for seeders and leechers on any number of popular and not so popular tracks. That ought to give you a general idea.
I've already said I don't download, so no.
You seem to assume that these downloads will never lead to paid downloads, which is counter to the Norwegian research Sacha pointed to and Simon's information.
What is the impact on the creators? Are they losing billions of monetary units because of these billions of downloads? Or are they gaining sales of individual tracks because people have had a chance to hear them.
Is there research on how people will behave ten, twenty years from now? Some of whom haven't been born yet? Oh, I'm very impressed.
Ah, so no research on what may happen in the future is valid now. Jeebus.
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I saw an article on TV3 last night about This. Whole new can of worms eh? but look on the bright side. How many times, I wonder, have publishers ordered a new print run only to sell a few dozen copies instead of the thousands they estimated? This could be a boon for both sides.
Print on demand has been around for a while, as a concept. People like to have physical books. I know of one publisher in NZ looking at it and they reckon they will only need to print 4 dozen books to break even. Perfect bound, of course.
I think it's one of the sales channels. I think it could be a very useful one, for publishers, retailers and writers. We'll see.
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what do you mean by 'accepting reality' and 'embracing the culture of abundance' if not doing away with copyright? Please clarify. 'Cos it sounds a lot like walking away from the concept of control over copying to me.
Philiosphically, I think copyright needs to be rethought, from the ground up (not because I want to get rid of it, but because it doesn't work in its current incarnation).
Pragmatically, I can't see that happening, so let's patch it as best we can to make it live-able with. Frantically trying to restrict it because of some unproven fear of "piracy" is not the way to do that, yet that's the way the industry (by which I mean movies and music, as the major players, but books are waddling along behind) are pushing the legislators and have been since the mid-sixties.
I've been working to prevent that, to educate legislators and the public that there are alternatives and that change shouldn't be feared, just because it's change.
And as for 'define fair'- look in a dictionary ;-)
I know what the dictionary says. That's why I asked what you meant, because they don't appear to coincide.
Or better, whatever you meant when you wrote that you personally didn't download copyright material out of a sense of fairness.
My personal sense of ethics has nothing to do with copyright, in the English Common Law approach that serves as the basis for NZ legislation, and everything to do with casting bread upon the waters. I pay for the stuff I use because I might want people to pay me for my stuff one day. I also like to reward achievement, whether it's the guy on Lambton Quay playing his samisen (he's not that good, actually) or Nine Inch Nails publishing their latest album (another dodgy example as, while I applaud their business model, I really don't like their music) or purchasing the Leonard Cohen DVD the other day from a retail store (because it really is that good).
Copyright is about permission/restriction (2 sides of the same coin) - it's not even about revenue-gathering, but preventing others from revenue-gathering where only you have the right to make copies.
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but one could point to billion more unpaid ones.
Go on, then. Where are they?
I certainly don't think you can equate each download in the second category as a net loss of one sale
But you just said there were billions! How do you arrive at these "billions"?
but how the patterns of consumer behaviour - which are in their infancy - will develop, is really anybody's guess.
Actually, no, there's research, it's been pointed to upthread.
but we ought to be prepared for some serious shaking up in an industry that is crucial to the public good.
Correct, and if the book industry approaches it in the same way as the music industry, they'll screw up just as badly.
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I was suggesting that my (yeah, I admit it- not based on 'empirical data'- but how much of this discussion has been?!) fear for the future of content creation is based on the idea that everyone benefits from the financial incentive for creation an enforced copyright brings.
You can laugh it away, but I'm pretty sure you've said yourself that's the rationale behind copyright.You'll have to point me at where that might have been said, you know, for context, because I find it hard to believe that I would have said it. It's not a position I hold.
Society and creators benefit from having copyright, if it's enforced - let's use your word - "fairly". Creators benefit because no-one can use their work for profit (or anything) without their permission, and society benefits because the work gets eventually released into the public domain. Your reading of that as being only of financial benefit to all concerned bears out my point that you don't understand what copyright is.
You admit that you have no evidence for your position. Come back when you have some.
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Steve: That's a cop-out, whether it comes from you or Giovanni
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I never have.
So it was some other Giovanni Tiso who wrote:
One of the responses to this changed environment has been to claim that copyright is too restrictive anyhow, and not serving society nor the creators, so let's do away with it, take the guilt out of the downloading and embrace the new.
(emphasis added)
I don't have proof either way, it's simply impossible to disambiguate the evidence.
So you were just putting forward "even if it were true that new technologies don't hurt creators in the pocket," for the sake of argument? Because the way you worded it makes it sound like you don't think it's true, which, without evidence, starts to smack of religious belief.
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Simon
As you said, some time ago, we coincide more in our opinions than we diverge. Where we differ, it seems, is that I still don't believe it's "piracy" that has caused the record companies so much woe.I don't believe copyright is the answer to getting remuneration to creatives, mainly because I don't believe breach of copyright was the problem. But I do agree that the industry bodies will never accept that they've been the authors of their own downfall (I don't say "demise" because there's still a chance they could come to understand, but the pain the rest of us have to go through will hardly be worth it).
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So, to sum up: after dismissing the argument that downloading actually hurt contents creators in the pocket,
Prove it. Hard verifiable data, please, none of your post-modern interpretations.
you are suggesting (under the guise of having 'recognised the reality of the situation' - your are never opinions, always facts somehow)
Are you disputing that the Internet has changed the nature of publishing? Are you saying that the digital world is not different from the analogue?
Is your whole criticism really based on me being sure of myself and my knowledge? Bro.
that copyright terms need to be reduced.
I have been careful to say that I believe that copyright terms have become too long. They have been rapidly lengthened since the mid-60's and I don't think this has been good for the creative sector or for the consumers. The only people who have really benefited are a few corporations (did you miss that?).
And how is that different from what I said above, exactly?
I've never advocated doing away with copyright completely, which appears to be some thesis you have ascribed to me. I have noted that that may well be the end result of not taking the issues seriously, as more and more people ignore laws that don't take a change in the environment into account.
I have, in fact, stated on more than one occasion that I think copyright is a good thing, but that the process around it is broken.
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why didn't you post that on page one? It would have saved a lot of copy, right?
And where would have been the fun in that? ;-) And anyway, I didn't even join the fun until half way down page 2.
Actually, my understanding has grown because/in spite of this thread. While my position hasn't actually changed, my capacity to articulate it has become more concrete. I couldn't have written the above back then, because I hadn't articulated it in those terms to myself.