[p2p-research] Fwd: [fcforum] Fw: iPad DRM is a dangerous step backward. Sign the petition!

[M. Fioretti]

On Sat, Feb 06, 2010 12:08:48 PM +0700, Michel Bauwens (michelsub2004 at gmail.com) wrote:

> My profound conviction is that if one person acquires any digital
> content, he is free to use and share, and that in no way sharing
> should be criminalized. But even with piracy, in a country like
> Thailand, it is simply immoral to enforce IP law, which destroys the
> livelyhood of hundreds thousands of people in the informal economy.

Michel,

I share (no pun intended) your concern, however I feel that the
position above is another hint that many analyses and proposals in
this field are weak and potentially counterproductive because they
come from a restricted vision.

First a general comment: I stepped into this thread only to discuss
copyright, not IP, and for now I'll stick to that. The impact of
patents, trademark and other stuff on the livelyhood of poor people is
really serious, I agree, but I'll stick to copyright.

Secondly, it is not correct to call "sharing" what I have attacked in
detail in my previous posts. If an author publishes something online
for free, without registrations or other barriers like proprietary
formats etc.. it's already shared. Integral copies of that work
anywhere else online are simply useless from that point of view
because they don't add anything to that sharing. They are not sharing,
because there was nothing more to share than what the author are
already done.

Sure, wee could maybe talk about derived works or translations, or
even offline distribution (eg printouts or CDs to folks without
connectivity) but I feel it would just add to confusion to do it
before these points are clear. Why go into details until we aren't
sure that we are using the right words at the basic level? See also my
answer to Kevin.

> A different issue is the ethical issue of attribution. What do we do
> with ethical breaches of that nature. If you see somebody
> reproducing your work, in a 'commercialized environment' and not
> attributing or paying you, how would want the law to react?

I think we should separate attribution and (as long as we need it to
pay the bills) money. Maybe attribution should be preserved by law
forever, unless the author says otherwise. For historical accuracy, if
nothing else?

When it comes to money, my position is what I already said: first,
make copyright last much, much less than today, and when stuff goes
into public domain that's it. Before expiration, if and when the
author doesn't want money, OK. Otherwise, the law should support the
author in this, in two parallel ways:

1) Do not tolerate J.K. Rowling style control tantrums, that is
   redefine fair use, format shifting, etc... in the interest of end
   users.

2) but also abolish the distinction between commercial and
   non-commercial in all cases where they hurt the authors. If I spend
   6 weeks writing a tutorial and put it online for free to get some
   money through banners, requests for donations and what not and you
   publish a complete copy on your site, it makes no difference
   whether YOU make money out of your copy or not. Even if you keep
   attribution, link to the original article etc... people who will
   read the whole thing on your site won't come to mine and read the
   banner, the request for donation or whatever it is. So you would
   indeed damage me even if you never wanted to make a penny out of
   your copy. Again, for no benefit whatever to society, because the
   whole tutorial was already available to everybody.

Marco