[pp.int.general] Protest certain musicians?

[Rick Falkvinge (Piratpartiet)]

Richard Stallman wrote:
> The point is, we should not accept "to pay the musicians" as justification for anything about what the music factories do

Definitely agreed. I'd say it's bad to call them "music factories" too;
that implies they manufacture music. Nowadays, I call them "an obsolete
duplication industry".

They don't create anything new; they merely create many duplications of
other people's work. The Internet does that much more cost-efficiently
and at exactly zero cost. Hence, the industry is obsolete.

(Side note: in a functioning economy, the end price for any product is
the margin cost of producing that product -- margin cost meaning the
cost of making the nth+1 unit when n unit have already been produced. We
know very well what the cost of producing a copy of a digital pattern
is. It is exactly zero.)

This leaves the question of business models for composers, authors and
performers. That, however, I must emphasize is NOT for a political party
to solve. No politician in a market economy can take responsibility for
somebody's living -- nor should we ever accept that responsibility.

Further, nobody is owed a living because we choose to listen to their
music. Case in point: street performers. If you stop and listen to a
skilled violinist, at what do you legally owe them money? The correct
answer is "never".

The instant you decide to try to make a living off of plinking your
guitar in the bedroom, you are no longer an artist, but an entrepreneur.
Same rules apply to you as every other entrepreneur on the planet: you
need to provide something that somebody else is prepared to pay for. If
you can do this, you need no laws to protect your business. On the other
hand, if you can't do this, no conceivable laws are able to protect your
business.