[pp.int.general] Protest certain musicians?

[Christian Hufgard]

Rick Falkvinge (Piratpartiet) wrote:
>> So I think, we have to find a balance between free access for everbody
>> to everything and the author's right. Here we are always taking about
>> consumers rights. What rights do we want to grant to authors?
>>   
> Here is where you walk astray.
> 
> The balance of copyright is not, and was never, between an author's
> right and something else. Never. Ever.
> 
> Copyright is a balance between the public's interest in having access to
> culture, and the SAME PUBLIC's interest in having new works created. The
> purpose of copyright is to culturally maximize society. (This is even
> written explicitly in the US Constitution, which words the purpose of
> copyright as "...to promote the progress of science and the useful
> arts...".)
> 
> The MEANS of doing so has been to grant a limited monopoly to the author
> or composer, a monopoly which has been sold to a publisher or other
> parasitic middleman.

Yeah. The author is granted a monopoly. So he has certain rights. :)


> Overall, the theory that copyright is needed as an incentive to create
> has been thoroughly debunked in the last 10 years of debate, as
> evidenced by, say, Wikipedia and GNU/Linux, not to mention the fact that
> 90% of music on P2P networks is unsigned. Or look at the millions of
> photos on Flickr where people have denounced their ALREADY-AWARDED
> monopoly. People create not because of copyright, but despite copyright.

Espacially wikipedia pretty relies on copyright. Also the gpl does. Free
licenses need this protection. And it's pretty good, that they are
protected.


> The only valid defense left for the monopoly is to protect heavy
> investments in culture that otherwise wouldn't have happened. Those
> three last words are key: any monopoly granted to an effect in society
> that would have occurred anyway becomes a hinder for creativity and/or
> innovation down the road, so the important thing here is to see what
> wouldn't be invested in if it were not for copyright.
> 
> Multimillion dollar movies out of Hollywood and computer games come to mind.

Also music studio productions reach pretty fast the level of more than 100k.


> So the next question would be, when those investment decisions are made,
> what are their ROI horizons? At what time from publication is further
> copyright irrelevant to their decision?
> 
> It turns out that most investments are calculating for an ROI of less
> than a year. Five years of commercial copyright is therefore actually
> overly generous to rightsholders, but I believe it is a decent stake in
> the ground.

Don't forget the very interesting time, when a famous artist dies...
This leads to a massive income - that is (partly of course) invested in
new artists.


> For more elaboration, see my recent open letter to the music industry, here:
> 
> http://english.rickfalkvinge.se/2009/10/20/open-letter-to-the-music-industry/

I read it just after your trip to "In the city". Wanted to mention it at
my blog, but didn't find the time yet. :)

Christian