Hello digital consumers!
The basis for this Steemit post is my moto: "Downloading and uploading - the basic civil right". There are many people, especially among digital content managers and producers, whom would not agree with that, therefore my aim is to change their views by displaying simple logical thinking about the subject, along with special accent to current reality and humane aspect of the problem.
Current legislation worlwide is almost unanimously repressive against people that are downloading and uploading data over the Internet and that is what I'm fighting against. Outdated laws about intellectual property serve only to relatively small interest groups for growing and preserving their own wealth. Such laws exist to prevent one perfectly normal human behavior which is multiplication of data, trying to take freedom of harmless acting on our own computers, on our own networks.
On the philosophical level: What is freedom? What is the definition of it? As with all basic terms, it’s very hard to answer that questions because subjective is what is ruling the opinion when such relatively abstract terms are in question. Anyhow, I will try to give my own definition and I wish to say it is constantly on my mind when thinking about the copyrights: Freedom is everything that we can do, while not hurting other beings. Naturally, you ask yourself where’s that line of not hurting another? Well, that is where we’re left on our own, and I do think people should enable some common sense about it. It’s like evolution, our minds should come to level where every individual deeply feels what is the acceptable behavior while that feel is objective and subjective, in the same time. And I’m free to think that my subjective opinion about the freedom is at least close to objective one, finally because this opinion itself can’t hurt anyone.
In countless discussions on the web, I refined the picture of what the most important issues are:
How the activity with such a massive number of participants could be criminal at all? I don't know the exact number of Internet users, but probably around 99% of them at least once broke the law by doing illegal download or upload of some data. Music, movies, books and programs are so ridiculously easy to find on the Web. In effect, what is forbidden here is pushing the virtual buttons, links to digital content which in its essence is pretty much a totally harmless operation.
Digitized good is fundamentally new kind of good: as much as the ability of copying is crippling in the sense of sales, in the same time it helps real quality products to spread much more easily among consumers, which was impossible before Internet/P2P networks emerged. What we have here is actually natural quality selection of digital data. Piracy enforces quality to great extent. BTW, Piracy is a wrong and misleading term IMO. Therefore, anyone can make a little revolution right in his/her bedroom, you just need quality product. No more contracts with big distribution/marketing companies are required for consumers to be able to reach quality producers. Decentralization! This is one crucial property of digitized good which changes the game by distrupting old means of ditribution and as such, it should be praised.
Nobody can prove that 1 copy equals 1 sale, or less, or more. Nobody can quantify that, there's no relation between. Who can say I would buy something if it wasn't free? We're witnessing how copyright holders love to multiply number of downloads with price, and then chase the downloader (and uploader) with enormous fines, frequently offering them court settlements for amounts that people can accept which are much lower than firstly calculated damage. How good they are! Obviously it's all business. I can put some crappy track made of my farts for download, give it a price of around USD 5, make it viral, hire some company to track downloads, then simply calculate the damage and hire some lawyer to finish the job. In the essence, that is rotten and fraudulent behavior, but that is what's actually happening!
Nobody (even the content creator) has a moral right to decide what is the only acceptable mean of distribution. When something is free and that is because it's multiplied not stolen, it's free. People just can't be punished because of data multiplication, nobody is directly hurt in that process - on the contrary, digital content creator becomes widely known and it could positively effect author's profits.
Every revolution has a relatively slow penetration into common sense people have and finally incorporation in laws is almost always a slow process. There are numerous examples in history, this is just one of the newest example. Ones that don't want downloading to become a common sense or be rightfully and morally legislated are the ones that are still profiting on ancient and disrupted technologies. Last revolution that happened is Digital Revolution (OK, Cryptocurrency Revolution is of newer date :), it's still young and the resistance of "elite" circles is great. They even manage to persuade authors they're working for their cause. For all I know, I will never buy any music from Metallica, Prince, Iggy Pop, etc... even if I generally like the music they output. They had too many sins when it comes to copyright perception. So they are not quite working for author's cause in my case and I believe there are many cases around which are alike. This is propaganda war: Industry is constantly trying to shape your opinion as a consumer and eventually an author. But that opinon Industry wants you to have can only be legitimate in a world where it's normal to be affraid about clicking the link, downloading and album from your favorite musician. It's a world of fear, it's a world of profit. Besides, how much does author get? Frequently, it's laughable 1-3% of the sales, right? By using already gained wealth, they're lobbying for even more restrictive and repressive laws which deeply interfere with people's right to privacy. It's all repressive and that modus operandi is unnacceptable.
Finally, copyright holders put an equal sign between the terms of stealing and copying which is nothing more than plain nonsense. If something is stolen, then the one who would previously had it cease to possess it, while the thief gains it. This is not the same as copying where no one is losing the good. These simple facts are the essence why the whole new kind of merchandise emerges: it’s Digital Good.
In the end... In the case you completely dislike and not agreeing wtih what you've read, but consider one more fact: Peace is on my side, profit is on yours. You want repressive profit-backed laws based on fear. Me, I'm wanting laws that say nobody could be punished for downloading or uploading.
Interesting enough, when I find myself tired in some online discussion about copyrights, I just ask copyright backers how many music/movies/programs did they download themselves? Usually they leave discussion, I have yet to see one claming everything he is consuming is paid.
Please, check hypocrite in you if you don't agree with me...
Wanna join Torrentech electronic music torrent tracker? Reach me an I will gladly join one more soldier to army of law breakers, but only if you're not hypocrite. ;)
I disagree, just because one downloads content for free, doesn't mean that they have to believe it is okay. Most of the time doing the easy thing is often also the wrong thing. I believe we need a new model for distributing digital content where both the creator and the consumer benefit equally.
I believe we already have plenty of models for distribution and finally there is one where consumer pays directly to artist, it just can't get any better than that. I'm all for free market, people are free to choose if they want to sell digital goods, but they don't have moral right to forbid copying it.
pyc? I just read your article, and you seem knowledgeable about copyright laws. I know that this may seem like an awkward question for me to ask you inasmuch as you are opposed to Draconian copyright laws. However, here's my question. Even though we don't normally need to copyright regular-sized articles before publishing them here on Steemit, would you still recommend that I obtained a copyright if I wanted to publish a 74-page article here on Steemit? I'm asking you, because I'm seriously considering posting that large of an article here on Steemit.
You're kidding me. I'm not for copyrights at all.
Oh, well, at least I tried and you replied.