From: Samantha Atkins (samantha@objectent.com)
Date: Fri Mar 29 2002 - 23:21:27 MST
spike66 wrote:
>>
>>
>> On Thu, 2002-03-28 at 23:45, Hal Finney wrote:
>>
>>> In my opinion, the situation we face is very clear. If unlimited
>>> free reproduction of information goods continues to be possible on
>>> the Internet, then the profitability of those goods is going to fall
>>> drastically, and people are going to stop creating them. In a nutshell,
>>> we are not going to have much new music and movies, if no one has to
>>> pay for them.
>>>
The above assumes that information is a type of "goods". But
information and software are quite different from many things we
think of as "goods". In particular they increase in useable
value the more they are shared. The only drawback is when we
try to treat something that cannot be consumed (in the sense of
no one else being able to also consume it thereafter) as if it
can be and therefore should be priced and marketed as if this is
so. There is also a drawback which is really an opportunity in
finding new ways to fund the creation and creators of
information and entertainment subject to digital information
characteristics.
Music and movies are a different category of "information" than
software and data/facts/news. How to renumerate the creators is
a very separable problem from how reproducible the information
is. You don't have to make digital media pretend that
non-digital rules apply in order to solve that problem. The
effort to force old rules and business models will result in
killing much of the promise of the computer age and in
drastically increasing the power of the state and decreasing the
freedom and well-being of the people.
We should no more strangle the digital baby than our
ancestors should have strangled the early automobile era to
protect the horse and buggy industries. There is likely to be
far less reason for much of the publishing industry in books and
music going forward. Some aspects of the production and
distribution of movies will also change. But it hardly follows
that we will not have music or movies if we don't preserve the
old rules.
- samantha
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