Re: Forwarded Invite to Discussion of EME at the European Parliament, Oct. 15, 11:00-13:00

On 2013-10-17 16:25 David Singer wrote:
> On Oct 17, 2013, at 15:38 , cobaco <cobaco@freemen.be> wrote:
> >>> - one of those guys at a traffic stop that starts cleaning your windows
> >>> unasked and then gets all outraged if you refuse to pay for the
> >>> unrequested service
 
> >> This is a completely false analogy.  If you don't want to pay for the
> >> content, no-one is forcing it on you.
 
> > So If I make a copy of something, nobody is gonna try and stop me?  Nobody
> > is gonna have a problem with that?
> > I bet that's news to all the people who got sued by the MPAA or their
> > local equivalent

> Are you seriously suggesting that someone washing your windows unasked, and
> then trying to charge you, is in any way analogous to you stealing something 
> and then being sued for that theft?

Copyright Piracy is in no way similar to theft
it is instead similar to sharing ideas, or telling jokes/stories, or sharing 
knowledge

Nina Paley is the one who made the fundamental difference most clear IMO (see 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeTybKL1pM4):

  ....

  Copying is not theft. 
  If I copy yours you have it too 
  One for me and one for you 
  That's what copies can do 

  If I steal your bicycle 
  you have to take the bus, 
  but if I just copy it there's one for each of us!

  ....

I'm suggesting washing your windows unasked, and then trying to charge after 
the fact, is analogous to creating/doing someting unasked and then demanding 
payment for it after the fact
which happens to be what the traditional content industry is using as a 
businessmodel for digital goods

People want to reward artists, and consequently they mostly will choose paying 
over piracy.
HOWEVER.... DRM makes customers jump through hoops to do so, consequently 
giving them an incentive not to pay (nobody likes being made to jump through 
hoops).

> Much of your email imagines a fantasy world in which people who create
> content are obliged to give it away free.  That's not the world we live in.

The definitions I gave are not fantasy, the logical conclusion that they are 
mutually incompatible isn't either

Of the of list similarities between music and movies industries I gave in the 
previous e-mail, which if any do you think is fantasy? 

That list of similarities explains _why_ the proposed alternative is workable, 
just as it prooved to be with music. 
The alternative course is fantasy only in the sense that it isn't currently 
being done. 

As to being obliged to give it away for free, they're of course not, 
BUT the very fact of giving someone a digital good (for free or not) allows 
him/her to copy it. 
Just like telling someone a joke/story allows him/her to repeat it to someone 
else (either improving on it, butchering it, or leaving it as is)

DRM at best obfuscates that ability, and then only as long as takes the first 
person to get past the obfuscation, after which a non-obfuscated copy will 
start circulating rendering the obfuscation pointless not just pointless but 
counterproductive . All it achieves copy-protection-wise is wasting effort.

I understand that the industry doens't like the fact that DRM as copy-
protection is counterproductive, and is trying its hardest to make that 
untrue, BUT that very much is the world we live in, not a fantasy.
-- 
Cheers

Received on Monday, 21 October 2013 10:44:34 UTC