Addendum
Opponents of open access academic publishing may say that this parable is hyperbole. It is, but only in one respect. When people do not have access to food they die quickly. When they don’t have access to science they die more slowly.
Note this parable works for any incumbent pre-Internet exclusive distribution network or content.
It isn’t about piracy – It’s about the Music Industry losing the ability to re-sell you the same music over, and over, and over. It’s about the Music Industry’s ever expanding back catalog no longer translating to automatic ever-expanding re-sales. The Music Industry spent a hell of a lot of money to make copyright effectively never-ending, explicitly to protect that re-selling revenue stream…and now the carpet has been yanked out from under them.
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That huge drop in sales? That’s called market saturation. Most everyone that wanted a Beatles or Stones recording already owns it…on a format they will effectively never replace again.
It’s about the Music Industry thinking, wrongly, that they were in the business of selling toothpaste. Then waking up one day to realize they really are selling cast iron frying pans. You’ll always need to buy more toothpaste…but you’ll never need to buy another cast iron frying pan.
The need for property rights only exist because of the natural scarcity of tangible, physical resources, and cannot apply to things which are infinitely reproducible like ideas or electronic files. Only tangible possessions can be the object of conflict between people and so it is only for them that property rules apply. Thus, patents and copyrights are unjustifiable monopolies granted by government legislation and it is this monopoly privilege that creates an artificial scarcity at the expense of us, the consumer.
These “Intellectual Property Rights” will always and forever violation the individual property rights of the consumer, e.g., to use one’s own tangible property as one sees fit.
IP can never be justified; let us end it, NOW!
I favour the Phoenix model of legislation development. At the very least we should stop making things worse.
Depicting Dotcom as a sweating Dr Evil was clearly in line with the police’s PR needs, but as Judge David McNaughton remarked, no evidence has been presented that Dotcom has done anything wrong, and there “appears to be an arguable defence at least in respect of the breach of copyright charges”. The public is asked to be content with allegations by the FBI, which include conspiracy to commit racketeering and money-laundering. We would not be the first to note that copyright infringement, the central charge against Dotcom, does not carry a heavy enough maximum penalty to trigger the provisions of an extradition treaty.
Very pleased to see some push-back on the narrative, I was beginning to think the NZ media, no doubt as overjoyed as the Police to have something so exciting to be involved with, had swallowed the story whole.
Everybody involved in pushing and rushing through this agreement have insisted that it will mean no changes at all, won???t require any changes to law (or possibly minimal ones to trademark law, as in Sweden), and overall, insist that it???s no big deal.
At the same time, these players are throwing all their weight behind its passage. The key question that results stands out like a sore thumb:
If ACTA doesn???t change anything, why are they pushing for its passage as if their life depended on it?
General-purpose computers are astounding. They’re so astounding that our society still struggles to come to grips with them, what they’re for, how to accommodate them, and how to cope with them. This brings us back to something you might be sick of reading about: copyright.
But bear with me, because this is about something more important. The shape of the copyright wars clues us into an upcoming fight over the destiny of the general-purpose computer itself.
Addendum: Regarding the monetary harm of Megaupload???s activities, the Justice Department characterized it, without explanation, as ???well in excess of $500,000,000??? since 2006. And although that number is probably meant to impress, it???s somewhat baffling. Even without a per annum breakdown, it comes nowhere near the annual piracy losses claimed by the major industry groups???whether the BSA???s $58 billion loss claims for software losses in 2010 or the ???conservative??? $26 billion estimate for movie, music, and software piracy from 2007, which lazy journalists still allow to circulate. This for the site that MPAA called ???By all estimates??? the largest and most active criminally operated website targeting creative content in the world.???
Since we???re using made up numbers here, let???s make up some more???and for the sake of argument, some extremely favorable ones for the Justice Department???s effort to paint Megaupload as the big bad. Posit that all $500 million in losses came in 2011. Posit the $26 billion loss number. Megaupload???s contribution to the pirate economy tops out at 2%.
“meant to impress” with little other value.
But just as the celebrations began over the saving of Internet Freedom, something else happened: the U.S. Justice Department not only indicted the owners of one of the world???s largest websites, the file-sharing site Megaupload, but also seized and shut down that site, and also seized or froze millions of dollars of its assets ??? all based on the unproved accusations, set forth in an indictment, that the site deliberately aided copyright infringement.
In other words, many SOPA opponents were confused and even shocked when they learned that the very power they feared the most in that bill ??? the power of the U.S. Government to seize and shut down websites based solely on accusations, with no trial ??? is a power the U.S. Government already possesses and, obviously, is willing and able to exercise even against the world???s largest sites (they have this power thanks to the the 2008 PRO-IP Act pushed by the same industry servants in Congress behind SOPA as well as by forfeiture laws used to seize the property of accused-but-not-convicted drug dealers).
???Those who count on quote ???Hollywood??? for support need to understand that this industry is watching very carefully who???s going to stand up for them when their job is at stake. Don???t ask me to write a check for you when you think your job is at risk and then don???t pay any attention to me when my job is at stake.???
Protect IP (PIPA) and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) are a step towards a different kind of Internet. They are a step towards an Internet in which those with money and lawyers and access to power have a greater voice than those who don???t.
It is clear that the step toward a democracy “in which those with money and lawyers and access to power have a greater voice than those who don???t” has long since been taken in American politics.
No wonder ex-Senator Dodd is so distressed that he would reveal these disappointed expectations with menace.
WE DON’T HAVE ANY DOMAIN NAME FOR NOW
ONLY THIS IP ADDRESS (http://109.236.83.66) BEWARE TO THE PISHING SITES!
This is the NEW MEGAUPLOAD SITE! we are working to be back full again
Bookmark the site and share the new address in facebook and twitter!
Yeah, right.
But it does illustrate the vulnerabilities that can be introduced. After all, innocent until proven guilty, but not in these prior restraint cases of course, one must stop that US$500,000,000 pain to the Cartel.
Hamish MacEwan 