From: Jason Joel Thompson (jasonjthompson@home.com)
Date: Thu Jul 13 2000 - 16:11:33 MDT
> The naked, unsupported assertion that music sales will not support
> artists absent copyright won't become true no matter how many times
> you repeat it. If this were true, broadcast television and radio
> would not exist at all, and yet they are billion dollar industries.
> I'm not surprized that I seem to be the only one in this debate
> who is using actual examples and actual numbers. Continually
> repeating unbacked opinions is a poor substitute for real philosophy.
Proceeding from false assumptions is also a poor substitute for real
philosophy.
Here you make the claim that TV and radio would not exist at all if there
were truly no market in the absence of copyright. But TV thrives on
copyright-- otherwise they wouldn't have all those major issues with
icravetv.com
Don't you think FOX would love to be able to start playing Seinfeld and
Frasier?? Hey, they wouldn't need to make any original programs at all
anymore, just siphon off the best from the other networks! For that matter,
*I* could start broadcasting Seinfeld and Frasier-- gee whiz, think of all
the advertising revenue I could make!
If the broadcasters don't own their content anymore, then there's no
incentive for them to create it.
>
> I am a 100% free-market capitalist. I hold no higher moral value
> than earning profit in the free market. But "free market" is open
> to varying definitions. Yours (and that of the existing system)
> includes the idea of government-backed protection of the market
> in information-based goods and services.
...and government backed protection of the market in commodities... and
rollerblades and cell phones and knee high socks and perky toy poodles.
Why arbitrarily pick out information as the lone property from which to
remove this sort of protection?
Re-selling information works is neither force nor fraud;
> it is only "theft" because the law defines it as such, and it is
> that definition we are debating, so you can't make it a premise.
Breaking into your house is only "theft" because the law defines it as such.
You don't object to the act of stealing, you just object to the means? And
if the means are non-intrusive enough, you have no objection? Sounds like
the argument from liquidity again... it's "easy" to steal, so it's okay...
--
::jason.joel.thompson::
::wild.ghost.studios::
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