On 27/03/2011 12:36, David Looser wrote:
wrote in message
b.com...
On 25/03/2011 09:04, David Looser wrote:
wrote


snipped not necessarily disagree but not the point I'm trying to make


Plenty of people say, as a point of apparent unequivocal fact, that
copyright is good, and I am wrong in my opinion.

Do they? We all have opinions on all sorts of subjects and what is the point
of having an opinion if you don't believe it to be true? In the case of
copyright we can only speculate on what the world would be like without it,
so obviously there cannot be "unequivocal fact".

My view, FWIW, is that without copyright few people, however much they might
want to, could afford to produce the sort of "works" that copyright
currently protects. In the particular case of film making the sheer cost of
the process would, IMO, mean the end of the film industry as we know it.


In a sense, yes, and I don't really have a problem with that (demise of
the industry as it stands). Of course I accept some people 'don't eat'
if there's no copyright - but that's a tiny (if significant) minority.
In much the same way as people who lose their jobs as a result of
bankers' excesses don't eat. Just because it happens don't make it
right. Also, distribution of proceeds is notoriously unfair - this
notion that the sound engineer of the artist get a decent cut is
fanciful. And perhaps 'art' (let's say) is better commissioned not off
the back of copyright revenue, but from what people ask for.

Anyway, my main point is that you can't fix something that is
fundamentally flawed. I've made the point that people shouldn't own
things. That would be difficult to tolerate or even imagine in our
society. But I feel it's this issue that leads to a lot of the problems
we have.

Rob