abolish copyright laws

whiteonion

We should abolish copyright laws, these laws are interfering with the way a normal market should work. When the supply of a good increases and all other things remain equal the price of this good should decrease. In this day and age you could make an almost infinite amount of copies of all kinds of data. This means that the supply of an artists album is infinite... The way a normal market would work means that the price should drop towards zero... The only ones who benefit from these laws are a vocal group of special interest groups.

Iwasfrozen

whiteonion wrote: »

We should abolish copyright laws, these laws are interfering with the way a normal market should work. When the supply of a good increases and all other things remain equal the price of this good should decrease. In this day and age you could make an almost infinite amount of copies of all kinds of data. This means that the supply of an artists album is infinite... The way a normal market would work means that the price should drop towards zero... The only ones who benefit from these laws are a vocal group of special interest groups.

If records were worth zero euro then nobody would bother writing them any more and the entire music industry would be destroyed with thousands unemployed.

whiteonion

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

If records were worth zero euro then nobody would bother writing them any more and the entire music industry would be destroyed with thousands unemployed.

If software was free nobody would bother making operating systems for computers. Oh wait there's GNU/Linux. If music was free nobody would bother making music, oh wait there are heaps of good free stuff on youtube for example the artist Tay Zonday.

wobzilla1

whiteonion wrote: »

good
Tay Zonday.

Paulw

whiteonion wrote: »

We should abolish copyright laws.

The only ones who benefit from these laws are a vocal group of special interest groups.

Yeah, special interest groups - photographers, writers, painters, composers, musicians, software developers, etc.

I, for one, think copyright laws are great, and should be enforced better.

Ray Burkes Pension

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

If records were worth zero euro then nobody would bother writing them any more and the entire music industry would be destroyed with thousands unemployed.

Good. Art should be created for Art's sake not as a money making tool.

MagicSean

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

If records were worth zero euro then nobody would bother writing them any more and the entire music industry would be destroyed with thousands unemployed.

I'd love to see that Bieber fella on the dole.

whiteonion

I wouldn't mind seeing the music industry be brought to it's knees by people who simply stops paying for the crap they release.

Paulw

k_mac wrote: »

I'd love to see that Bieber fella on the dole.

In fairness, he probably doesn't hold the copyright on anything. The music company probably holds most of the copyright, and the writer/composer would hold a portion too.

Iwasfrozen

whiteonion wrote: »

If software was free nobody would bother making operating systems for computers. Oh wait there's GNU/Linux. If music was free nobody would bother making music, oh wait there are heaps of good free stuff on youtube for example the artist Tay Zonday.

Oh for God's sake, people like Tay Zonday put music up on youtube to get their music out there with the hope that they can one day make a living out of it. Nobodies going to choose music as a career if it doesn't pay anything.

And it won't just be the singers themselves (I hate the term artist for singers) who will be out of a job the entire music industry i.e Labels and retail stores like Sony and HMV will also go belly up, costing thousands of jobs.

Nothings free in this world kid you have to pay for everything eventually. Even music.

Ray Burkes Pension wrote:

Good. Art should be created for Art's sake not as a money making tool.

Music isn't an art. It's a service. And those who provide you with this service deserve to be paid. Would you expect your mechanic to service your car for free because he should be doing it for it's own sake and not as a money making tool? No? Then why should people provide you with music for free.

k_mac wrote:

I'd love to see that Bieber fella on the dole.

Meh. He's not my cup of tea but he makes millions of little girls, and some boys, happy.

krd

We should abolish copyright laws, these laws are interfering with the way a normal market should work. When the supply of a good increases and all other things remain equal the price of this good should decrease. In this day and age you could make an almost infinite amount of copies of all kinds of data. This means that the supply of an artists album is infinite... The way a normal market would work means that the price should drop towards zero... The only ones who benefit from these laws are a vocal group of special interest groups.

If the price drops to zero there would be no market. No market, no produce.

Copyright is there so we can have a market in intellectual property. Before copyright it was not worth going to bother of creating intellectual works - as there was little market for them. There may have been a huge demand but no market. Before copyright - books from their original producers were prohibitively expensive. After copyright a functioning market was established, demand could be met.

All the costs of production are not in duplication. First an investment must be made in creating something before it's worth duplicating. The cost of duplicating music has become cheaper, the total costs in producing it have not.

If the development costs aren't protected than you have a market failure. It's not worth anyone's bother developing intellectual property if some cute hoor can bang up duplicates of it and flog them out of the back of a van.

It's like this - if at a market - like a food market - if everyone was just free to pick up whatever they like and not pay for it - the food producers would simply stop producing food. Why should they put in all that hard work and spend money on seeds, fertilizer and farm equipment, as well as transport and refrigeration, when people can just grab what they like for nothing? There would be no food.

Remove the intellectual property from a computer and it becomes a useless lump of plastic, metal, and glass.

The music business can't really be saved unless a way is found to make money apart from recordings. The trouble hit when CD duplicators became ubiquitous. School boy "entrepreneurs" made little fortunes literally banging out copies to beat the band.

whiteonion

krd wrote: »

If the price drops to zero there would be no market. No market, no produce.

Copyright is there so we can have a market in intellectual property. Before copyright it was not worth going to bother of creating intellectual works - as there was little market for them. There may have been a huge demand but no market. Before copyright - books from their original producers were prohibitively expensive. After copyright a functioning market was established, demand could be met.

All the costs of production are not in duplication. First an investment must be made in creating something before it's worth duplicating. The cost of duplicating music has become cheaper, the total costs in producing it have not.

If the development costs aren't protected than you have a market failure. It's not worth anyone's bother developing intellectual property if some cute hoor can bang up duplicates of it and flog them out of the back of a van.

It's like this - if at a market - like a food market - if everyone was just free to pick up whatever they like and not pay for it - the food producers would simply stop producing food. Why should they put in all that hard work and spend money on seeds, fertilizer and farm equipment, as well as transport and refrigeration, when people can just grab what they like for nothing? There would be no food.

Remove the intellectual property from a computer and it becomes a useless lump of plastic, metal, and glass.

The music business can't really be saved unless a way is found to make money apart from recordings. The trouble hit when CD duplicators became ubiquitous. School boy "entrepreneurs" made little fortunes literally banging out copies to beat the band.

If the music industry cannot survive it is because that they have a business model that doesn't work in the modern world. If their business model doesn't work they deservere to go out of business. Patent and copyright laws are just used to protect special interest groups. Because of current laws there is a huge problem with "patent trolling" and big corporations in general bullying people about so called copyright infringements.

krd

whiteonion wrote: »

If the music industry cannot survive it is because that they have a business model that doesn't work in the modern world. If their business model doesn't work they deservere to go out of business.

Like if the business model for farmers didn't work, they'd deserve to go out of business and we'd all deserve to starve to death.

Muppet thinking.

The media industry is suffering because of shrinkage. That is if you imagine they're like farmers, and spivs are coming along at night and stealing the crops from their fields.

Their market is being destroyed because of theft.

whiteonion

krd wrote: »

Like if the business model for farmers didn't work, they'd deserve to go out of business and we'd all deserve to starve to death.

Muppet thinking.

The media industry is suffering because of shrinkage. That is if you imagine they're like farmers, and spivs are coming along at night and stealing the crops from their fields.

Their market is being destroyed because of theft.

Copyright infringements is not theft. Not even by law is it considered theft. It is a punishable offence but it isn't theft.

Tom Young

whiteonion wrote: »

Copyright infringements is not theft. Not even by law is it considered theft. It is a punishable offence but it isn't theft.

If a work is considered property of yours, therefore yours to sell, etc. It it is sold without your permission, what is that classified as then? .... borrowing?

godwin

whiteonion wrote: »

The only ones who benefit from these laws are a vocal group of special interest groups.

As someone who depends on royalties from copyrighted music , I would disagree.
I live on a council estate and drive a 12 years old car , so we are not all living in mansions being chauffeured around.

whiteonion

Tom Young wrote: »

If a work is considered property of yours, therefore yours to sell, etc. It it is sold without your permission, what is that classified as then? .... borrowing?

In the vast majority of cases regarding pirate copies of digital files money does not change hands. So your comparison is very flawed.

Paulw

whiteonion wrote: »

In the vast majority of cases regarding pirate copies of digital files money does not change hands. So your comparison is very flawed.

Ah, so it's alright to take someone elses work, as long as no money changes hands?

Do you work for free?

Javan

Tom Young wrote: »

If a work is considered property of yours, therefore yours to sell, etc. It it is sold without your permission, what is that classified as then? .... borrowing?

It not classed as borrowing, theft or 'piracy'. It is called copyright infringement, and despite the attempts of the content industries to get it classed as a criminal offence it is still (I believe) a civil offence. The copyright owner will ask the court for relief if they discover infringement, the state or DPP will not take the case.
There is more specific info at http://www.cai.ie/faq/index.htm

As to whether copyright should be abolished: absolutely not. I work in the software industry, and the main legal recourse my employer has against a customer that decides to use our software without paying for it is through copyright law. (Contract law can also be used, but it means getting informed consent from every single customer, which can be legally and logistically difficult.)

Should copyright become a criminal offence: definitely not. Should we have criminal charges in Ireland like the DMCA charges for circumventing technical copy protection systems (DRM systems): definitely not

RandolphEsq

If copyright laws are not enforced then we have a situation where any thoughts or ideas, once expressed to other people, cease to belong to you. Thoughts and ideas will become meaningless. Where will we be then?

Tom Young

Javan wrote: »

It not classed as borrowing, theft or 'piracy'. It is called copyright infringement, and despite the attempts of the content industries to get it classed as a criminal offence it is still (I believe) a civil offence. The copyright owner will ask the court for relief if they discover infringement, the state or DPP will not take the case.
There is more specific info at http://www.cai.ie/faq/index.htm

As to whether copyright should be abolished: absolutely not. I work in the software industry, and the main legal recourse my employer has against a customer that decides to use our software without paying for it is through copyright law. (Contract law can also be used, but it means getting informed consent from every single customer, which can be legally and logistically difficult.)

Should copyright become a criminal offence: definitely not. Should we have criminal charges in Ireland like the DMCA charges for circumventing technical copy protection systems (DRM systems): definitely not

I asked what it should be called? .... infringement is of course the correct term. Usually infringement of a right or on/of a property can result in some form of recourse.

I wouldn't agree with most of your views above. I do however have strong views on 'not shooting the messenger' in the case of telecom and Internet firms.

Tom