[p2p-research] Fwd: arguments against applying open/free to other content

[Michel Bauwens]

Hi Marco,

perhaps you would be interested to join the p2p research list, which is
mostly, but not exclusively, academics and research oriented people?

please feel free to use Sam's comments on your own site as well.

I will engage with the arguments myself, but not now,

Michel

On Feb 20, 2008 6:32 AM, M. Fioretti <marco.fioretti at eleutheros.it> wrote:

> On Tue, Feb 19, 2008 20:52:21 PM +0700, Michel Bauwens wrote:
> > a response to the ip article,
>
> thanks for passing it around and for defining it "a good set of
> arguments". If you want, I can post the comments below directly to
> that list, to discuss them.
>
> > On Feb 19, 2008 7:01 AM, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >     http://digifreedom.net/node/58
> >
> >     This is a good set of arguments, actually written by a free
> >     software advocate, against applying those principles to other
> >     areas of content creation
>
> I'm not against applying those principles to other creative works than
> live music. I'm just pointing out that what can work great with live
> music is not an absolute, universal truth, but something which is much
> less valid, or much less often, in other creative fields. With respect
> to Samuel's comments:
>
> > Without actually addressing his arguments one-by-one, I have to say
> > that his understanding of how people can possibly earn a living from
> > art, music, and creative works, is limited. I think that time will
> > prove him wrong.
>
> I'd like to hear from Samuel more on this, so if I'm wrong I can
> correct myself earlier :-) I'd also like him to note that I haven't
> said at all anything like "All rights reserved, all the time, all the
> way is the only sustainable way". That is Disney and Sony, not me. I
> have said that the usual copyright-complete-abolition arguments are
> much, much weaker than those who I call "freeloaders" usually care to
> admit.
>
> > I do agree with him that it's useful to declare a license of some
> > form up front, as the creator of a work.
>
> As far as I can see and recall, I have not really written in that
> piece that it is "useful to declare a license". Of course it _is_
> useful. It is even _necessary_ given the current legislation, as
> Samuel himself points out.
>
> But what I have written is that a right of authors to control the use
> of their creations (within limits, especially in time, much stricter
> than the current ones, see http://digifreedom.net/node/59) is a
> natural and good thing, not some artificial, out-of-the-blue,
> inherently unethical violence as implied in what I call "copyright
> myths". Regardless of, and before, if and how the author freely
> decides to exercise it, that is to explicitly declare a license.
>
> > With creative works, like art and music, I understand the author's
> > point about donation based models, and needing build up fan
> > bases. Yet, the need to build up demand in order to make a profit
> > exists no matter what, whether or not they are donation based, or
> > whether music materials are totally copyrighted, for instance.
>
> Is this a critic to my positions? If yes, I confess I don't see it.
>
> > I can tell you from experience as a professional touring musician,
> > our group made more money by offering recordings and other products
> > for a donation, than just trying to sell them outright. And, these
> > products we're all fully copyrighted. But the way that we sold them
> > was by asking for people who took a CD to donate whatever they
> > could. This also happens to be a good way to attract more fans, by
> > making your recording more widely available.
>
> This just confirms my initial point, doesn't it? "What can work great
> with live music is not an absolute, universal truth, but something
> which is much less valid, or much less often, in other creative
> fields". That is, in the context of my piece, "be very, very, very
> carefull to yell "death to copyright!" just because several musicians
> may make a living without it".
>
> See last paragraph of Myth #3:
>
> > Live performances? What should writers do, read a whole 400 pages
> > book in a pub or theater every night, to an audience which would
> > enjoy it much more reading it where they feel like it, probably
> > alone, one chapter at a time? Even staying with music, what about
> > lyricists?
>
> I'll just add to this that side jobs don't count in discussing these
> issues. Sure, one can survive with a clerk or farming job, or even
> teaching guitar, literature or mathematics and play or write at
> night.
>
> But if this is the _only_ way to survive for an artist, if an artist
> cannot be just an artist full time, with as little powerful patrons
> and intermediaries as possible... it isn't a good thing for society as
> a whole, we haven't progressed all that much since the middle ages and
> a reformed copyright continues to seem to me the most natural,
> effective and intrinsically right way to avoid these errors.
>
>   Marco
> --
> Eleutheros:  www.eleutheros.it
>             A Catholic approach to Information Technology
>             Un approccio Cattolico all'Informatica
>
>


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