[pp.int.general] [Cafe] levies

[Amelia Andersdotter]

On 25/03/2008, Carlos Ayala <aiarakoa at yahoo.es> wrote:
> Debate remains the same: is there any harm, any loss that ought to be
> compensated? No harm, no pay. Pretty simple. Unless you think -do you?- that
> non-lucrative filesharing poses a harm to copyright holders -harm that, by
> the way, must be reasoned- that should be compensated; the reasons for such
> believe, I think would be pretty interesting.
>

Copyright owners, or artists/authors, lose the right to control
distribution. With copyright being essentially a moral right, there is
a moral claim to compensation. Such a moral claim could also work
around other problems. Bear with me.


>
> That's the point: privacy is out of question, this won't never be for us
> like we have to pay a price (levy) to keep our privacy safe. Never. It would
> be like RMOs & entertainment industry blackmailing, extorting us, wanting us
> to pay a price in exchange of keeping our rights & liberties safe. We have
> in Spain clear & present daily experiences about extorting and blackmailing,
> and what we ought to answer to such practices is NO.
>

If you compensate them for the _loss of control_ they can't whine
about having lost it (which is essentially what they do today). They
would have no further claims to infringe on civil liberties as their
very cause of action has already been accounted for.

The infringement of civil liberties claims rely on you having to
surveil who downloads what and when - with a compensation for the loss
of distributive control itself that would be completely unnecessary.
You would have essentially already compensated them for not being able
to control what or where their creative works go - it would be quiet
absurd if we'd first legislate don't have any, and can't have any,
control whatsoever and then try regain the same control.

A tax/levy as described above is also no hinder to shortening the
length of copyright terms. Most of the other issues, like shortening
commercial copyright terms to 5 years, would be completely unaffected.
In a long-term perspective, you could remove the tax/levy as well.

/amelia