[pp.int.general] Denmark revises position on sound copyright extension

[NingúnOtro]

El sáb, 09-04-2011 a las 11:24 +0200, Pat Maechler v/o Valio escribió:
> This is bad!
> http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110408/03061013821/denmark-reverses-position-copyright-extension-may-impact-all-europe.shtml
> 
> More infos (although a bit outdated)
> http://www.soundcopyright.eu/

Yes indeed, it is!

But we have to build up a clear and simply understandable discourse
whose logic can easily be understood by everyone. Not only the political
and academical intellectual few, but the man and woman in the streets.

In essence, the facts are these:

1) The copyright industry strikes a deal with the public powers where,
to incentivate creation in the benefit of the whole of society, they are
granted a temporary monopoly, enforced through the public and not any
private authority, that helps them create an environment where they can
invest the relatively huge sums required to prepare for mass production
and enjoy in exchange a guaranteed term of protection that enables them
to collect an adecuate return on investment.

This is not a NATURAL RIGHT, it is an anti-natural protection (there you
go, free market fans ;) ) granted by the public power that be to the
copyright industries, in exchange for another anti-natural benefit, in
favour of society this time, ... the increased production of cultural
goods that benefit the instruction of all of society at large.

2) The copyright industry has benefitted to the whole extent possible
from the terms in the agreement that are to its advantage, but now it
intends to push back, and if possible totally cancel, the part of the
bargain that is to benefit society at large.


The truth is not that the people that compose society are stealing from
the Copyright Industry what is rightly theirs... but that the Copyright
Industry is pushing back in time and trying to cancel alltogether the
need to comply with their part of the bargain.

The most visible part of this struggle is being staged around the
technical difficulties the Industry is having to preserve the rights it
has been conceded because they have been enacted around the protection
of the inversion needed to mass produce, offered by the public powers,
and the evolution of the technology has made it utterly impossible
nowadays for the public powers to enforce this protection without
intruding into the private sphere of its citizens, a private sphere that
is protected with recognised basic human rights they can not simply
impinge upon without losing democratic legitimacy (well, at least the
public illusion that is still left of it).

While this is the publically promoted part that can be defended through
heavy lobbying and expensive propaganda...

... the biggest problem of the industry is not the defense of the new
and recently generated rights of contemporaneous creators (the ones we
claim they do not need the obsolete industry anymore to create, but
instead need to reformulate their business plans to adopt a scheme that
may grant them benefits while submerged in the ACTUAL state of social
consciousness and technical possibilities), but the fact that an
enormous amount of created "published works" is becoming available to
the general public at no cost or little marginal cost, at a moment when
the natural evolution of THEIR LOGIC has created a scarcity of income to
most of the citizens. A scarcity of income and lack of jobs that has
left a big chunk of the whole population with no spare resources and
thus no budget for non-essential spending.

Of course, this translates into the extension of available albeit
unvoluntary free time they have no budget to fill up with meaningful
activity, be it life-sustaining (earning an income) or mere leisure
(avoiding utter boredom). Very cheap copying technology and plenty of
availability of public domain cultural works (be it in text, sound or
visuals) enables the people on a tiny budget to avoid boredom in ways
that need not pay tribute to the Copyright Industry, and that is what is
impacting on the industries benefit margins. The fact that some of their
actual productions are being copied and made available too is only
secondary, as made clear by the knowledge that one copy circulated
outside of their commercial channels does not equal one lost sale.

Honest people that lose their jobs and see themselves with more leisure
time to fill meaningfully read more, listen more to music, and view more
films... paying normally as long as their savings last. But once their
budget is spend they turn to free available content to fight the
boredom.

True, the more free content is available... the less they spend scarce
resources they prioritarily need to cover basic needs on just fighting
boredom.

That effect is exactly the same any industry has to face nowadays: you
can not delocalize production to cheap labor countries and pretend to
sell the production at high prizes in the highly developped countries
with an highly increased profit margin... if you have not paid the
people in the developped countries the high salaries they need to pay
your high prices. Then you finally neither sell in the developped
countries, nor can you sell in the cheap labor countries.

The first to jump on that pyramid scheme can make increased benefits...
the time it takes for the pyramid to collapse.

The sooner we the people open our eyes wide... the sooner the present
pyramid collapses... and the more difficult it becomes for them to start
the next one.


I hope you read all the way to the end. It is simply impossible to
explain most of these things twitter style ;) .

Cheers everyone.

NingúnOtro.


> -pat
> ____________________________________________________
> Pirate Parties International - General Talk
> pp.international.general at lists.pirateweb.net
> http://lists.pirateweb.net/mailman/listinfo/pp.international.general
> 

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