Obama: No Change on Copyright Law
Mar. 24th, 2009 08:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
redneckgaijinI download maybe three audio tracks per year. I have to really want a track to stop my Internet use, begin the download, and wait a couple hours for it to finish. Dialup really sucks.
Even if I had broadband, though, I wouldn't download much more than that. I might buy a few tracks here and there, but not blind- not without having heard the song beforehand. If I liked the song, I'd pay for the download.
And the only way I'd download something without paying would be either if it were free or if it was not available in any commercial format- that is, I might download a song that I couldn't buy.
Why? Because I believe that a creator has the right to control his or her creation, to profit from their labor. The only reason I'd favor any download that doesn't put money in the creator's pocket is if the creator, or the people to whom the creator has sold the copyright, have made the deliberate decision not to offer me, the consumer, a means by which I can pay for the product. (See definitions of: stupidity.)
So, as a general rule I'm the enemy of those who crow that "information wants to be free." Information doesn't want anything. It just sits there. People want things: specifically, they want to get things without paying for them.
But the RIAA, an organization which is half industry puppet and half government agency, goes too far- levying massive lawsuits at random against downloaders and attempting to subvert the Fourth Amendment. They've sued people as young as four years old.
And Obama's administration is going to back them up every inch of the way.
One wonders if Obama will also back RIAA collecting fees from broadcast and internet broadcasters- even for songs created and performed by musicians who are NOT RIAA members.
Or, getting away from RIAA, if Obama will back the major Hollywood studios and network broadcasters and cable outlets in their efforts to eliminate the public domain.
But, at least on this, Obama is in total agreement with Bush: an unaccountable semi-private agency should have the power to destroy people's lives in order to defend copyrights, even on behalf of people who don't want that agency to represent them.
And, considering this, consider also: if Obama agrees with RIAA on this, how much more will he agree with RIAA's other demands- especially their demand to make it a practical impossibility to download anything.
So, online musicians- especially funny music musicians- I wholeheartedly urge you, while you're posting downloads to the Internet, don't abandon CDs just yet. Unless something changes, might be in the near future that nobody will be able to get your songs except on CD.
(And roughly between a quarter and half of America is in that boat right now, anyway...)
Even if I had broadband, though, I wouldn't download much more than that. I might buy a few tracks here and there, but not blind- not without having heard the song beforehand. If I liked the song, I'd pay for the download.
And the only way I'd download something without paying would be either if it were free or if it was not available in any commercial format- that is, I might download a song that I couldn't buy.
Why? Because I believe that a creator has the right to control his or her creation, to profit from their labor. The only reason I'd favor any download that doesn't put money in the creator's pocket is if the creator, or the people to whom the creator has sold the copyright, have made the deliberate decision not to offer me, the consumer, a means by which I can pay for the product. (See definitions of: stupidity.)
So, as a general rule I'm the enemy of those who crow that "information wants to be free." Information doesn't want anything. It just sits there. People want things: specifically, they want to get things without paying for them.
But the RIAA, an organization which is half industry puppet and half government agency, goes too far- levying massive lawsuits at random against downloaders and attempting to subvert the Fourth Amendment. They've sued people as young as four years old.
And Obama's administration is going to back them up every inch of the way.
One wonders if Obama will also back RIAA collecting fees from broadcast and internet broadcasters- even for songs created and performed by musicians who are NOT RIAA members.
Or, getting away from RIAA, if Obama will back the major Hollywood studios and network broadcasters and cable outlets in their efforts to eliminate the public domain.
But, at least on this, Obama is in total agreement with Bush: an unaccountable semi-private agency should have the power to destroy people's lives in order to defend copyrights, even on behalf of people who don't want that agency to represent them.
And, considering this, consider also: if Obama agrees with RIAA on this, how much more will he agree with RIAA's other demands- especially their demand to make it a practical impossibility to download anything.
So, online musicians- especially funny music musicians- I wholeheartedly urge you, while you're posting downloads to the Internet, don't abandon CDs just yet. Unless something changes, might be in the near future that nobody will be able to get your songs except on CD.
(And roughly between a quarter and half of America is in that boat right now, anyway...)
