[pp.int.general] [Cafe] levies

[Carlos Ayala]

----- Mensaje original ----
De: Amelia Andersdotter <teirdes at gmail.com>
Enviado: martes, 25 de marzo, 2008 16:59:26
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

Copyright is not a moral right, but a material interest; and nonetheless material interests -material, commercial, economic rights- declared in the UDHR can be redefined -for instance, we are trying to shorten the lifespan of copyright, shortening that comes to be a redefinition of a material- without changing UDHR.

As I commented in former mails, Amelia, it's required to completely know where we are, to be able to know how to get where we want to be; knowing that copyright is not a moral right, but something included within the author's material rights, it's one of those required previous steps.

> > 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

Extorters and blackmailers are never satisfied; if they find a breach, if they find a weakness, from time to time they'll try once and again and again to demand further claims.

Do you really believe, Amelia, that people like Carlos López -SonyBMG Spain Chairman- are gonna be satisfied with the new Spanish digital levies? Or that people like him would be satisfied with DSL levies? Never. Some time after having achieved it, they would claim that such levies have -according to such people- shown to be insufficient, and the would claim for more. This is always the same mechanism.

So let's gonna focus on what really matters: is there something to be compensated? That's the question.

> 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.

As Rick Falkvinge pointed out, surveillance is not only unnecessary, but unbearable anywise. So it's for me out of question, I hope none of us would sit in a round table with people like Carlos López, people who threat us with the "Sarkozy-like measures, or DSL levies" false dicotomy.

To make myself understood: I'm not gonna pay nothing to anyone, just because being told "pay me or I'll beat you"; not being beaten is, for me, out of question ... is there something to be compensated? Ok let's gonna find it out, if there is something we'll be able to discuss how to compensate it ... however, if nothing has to be compensated, thinking about how to stop their whining -and their slandering, and their offencing, etc- by ceding anything is ... an idea pretty hard to get, do you agree?

> 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.

I see. Thus, would be our strategy to continue ceding -for reasons still undisclosed- before just starting to bring up our claims? Pretty hard to agree with it.

Reasons have to be put, in my opinion, on the table; reasons about why is there something to be compensated -and not just because they're whining; I mean from a civil law basis-. After having such reasons on the table, I think discussion will be more focused; if future laws force us, like current ones do, to accept levies -because we wouldn't have enough strength to change such laws-, then we would discuss how those levies -never forget that such levies are not taxes, but exactions directly related with the supposed harm (very important: supposed harm), so are exactions directly to be paid to the copyrighted holders of the corresponding works- should be implemented to be compatible with civil rights and liberties; however, if we aren't forced to, we need to follow reasons, not whinings -and of course, not slandering nor offencing like the ones shown by SonyBMG Spain Chairman, or by RMOs- ... and if only whinings, slanders and offences are put on the
 table, such pack should be ignored; because at the end the ones who really suffer, apart from citizens and SMEs, are the very authors not the bestselling ones, but the vast majority of authors. Regards,

        
                                                                                               Carlos Ayala
                                                                                               ( Aiarakoa )

                                                                        Partido Pirata National Board's Chairman




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