Sharing files
The news has mentioned file sharing more and more. The Pirate Bay has ended up in court, the Danes are blocking TPB and in GB, the discussing seems to concern shutting out customers (Swedish link).
Now, I have two questions:
#1 Will I be shut out for sharing my latest Kubuntu torrent?
#2 How do you discriminate between TPB and Google? Both allow you to search for copyrighted material.
Let me continue by saying that I'm not an information-wants-to-be-free-I-grab-what-I-can kind of guy. However, I feel that the current problem is a legal system and a market that are seriously out of synch with reality. Allowing this to ruin peoples lives and private economy during a transition period (yes - reality always catches up) is a Bad Thing.
So, what are the alternatives:
Watermarking (and prohibited/limited re-distribution)
Free (as in libre) software with paid services
Free (as in free beer) software with paid services
Free music with more frequent (paid) public performances
Paid software with hardware keys
I'm sure that there are more alternatives here. I will be interesting to see which is choosen as standard (hopefully now suing your customers...)
posted by Johan Thelin @ 07:27
5 comments
5 Comments:
I'm from the Spanish Pirate Party (and also a KDE developer ;-).
It's obvious that we cannot criminalize people because they download software. But in case of for example videogames, they have a greal eal of cost and there's not always an effective alternative way to get money if it's not by buying the videogame. Take Halo 3 for example. Maybe with services..?
Current laws are messed up. We need to at least to comply with the "proportionality rule",so that downloading a 60€ videogame can get you a fine of no more than 60€.
Oh and that would be only the case of software. For music, videos, etc. I would allow free downloads if there's no $$ profit. Actually, that's more or less how the law works in Spain ;-).
I think that you are making an important point - the key is not to take profit from the producers, we just want the convenience of distribution and a reasonable fee.
As for games and such - I'd say services and we see that coming more and more. Either paying for add-ons or paying to get more server access (perhaps 1h a day is free, or something like that). That would also, give the game companies a more even currency flow as they aren't so dependent on new releases all the time.
The only fair(ish) way to guarantee artists get money from downloaders is this:
A compulsory license fee as part of your monthly ISP bill.
People go online to access content, some of that content is copyrighted, so collect a fee as part of going online but in return drop the barriers to any and all file sharing. Distribute the license fee money to artists strictly by popularity.
The benefits to artists and consumers are immense, and a host of amazing things happen. Rather than repeat them here, go read the EFF paper. IMO EFF errs in making it voluntary. Royalties on blank tape and CD-Rs aren’t voluntary.
Doesn't that mean that I'll have to pay for downloading actual free contents as well? That does not seem fair to me, and that only makes it possible to get paid if you're big enough to be represented through the official companies. Independent content producers would probably be left out.
Johan,
That's the same argument that people make against blank media levies — "But I only record birdsong and my local choir!" C'mon, $5 a month for legal sharing of ANY copyrighted material is a great deal.
Everyone who joins the "collecting society" gets paid, no major label backing required. Most songwriters are willing to join ASCAP or BMI, far more than sign with a major label. The EFF article talks about this in more detail.
Regards.
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