- Thanks for the civilised conversation.
- It is unfortunate that the issue of file-sharing has become mired in the issue of freedom from surveillance; I, too, despise the continuing inroads on freedom of communication and individual security, supposedly driven by “national security” and by this P2P explosion.

A problem with such a statement is, simply, that most file-sharing is not people sharing “their” culture, they are sharing the results of the creativity and work of other peoples’ culture.

“No natural right is being violated”

What do you consider a “natural right” ??

“free promotion and distribution” – this has been the selling point for so many previous schemes in the arts that it has become practically cliché; I would say that free promotion & distribution + €1.90 will by a cup of coffee.

It seems that we might disagree on the basic premise of who will pay for what … I believe that you have a utopian view that people will pay for what they can get for free, which does not at all match the current reality.

” a copyright holder’s monopoly was being infringed, but that is an anachronistic and unethical privilege, not a natural right.”

Here we disagree, on the basic premise of whether it is unethical for a person who produces something, be that a physical or intellectual product, to profit from the product of their labour, insight or creativity. Copyright also conveys upon the copyright holder the right to control not only the distribution, but the form of the copyrighted material, preventing the distortion, modification, or misuse of the material, as determined by the moral rights of the copyright holder.

File-sharing is simply a facility to enable people to share their culture with each other. No natural right is being violated through the exchange of published art and knowledge. The most you could say is that a copyright holder’s monopoly was being infringed, but that is an anachronistic and unethical privilege, not a natural right.

So, no, file-sharing will provide no money to authors – directly. However, it does provide them with free promotion and distribution – something they’ve traditionally had to pay publishers a shed load of money for (hence such a tiny royalty). But then, because it provides them with free promotion and distribution it also helps increase the size of their audience. And their audience is where their revenue will come from in the future (the only people who actually want their work enough to pay good money for it).

You are right to observe that a lot has changed since the 18th century. It is now far easier for an author’s audience to communicate with them and commission them to produce more work (taking over the traditional publisher’s role).

A digital copy costs nothing to make and there is no longer any market for it. Printers are going to go out of business. Unfortunate for them, but inevitable.

A novel, single, movie costs a fair bit of time, effort, skill, money, creativity, to make and that’s what there remains a good market for. People don’t suddenly stop wanting such great works of art simply because they no longer get prosecuted for sharing copies of them with their friends. They stop needing to pay publishers for copies of course, but they still need to pay for the production of the movies.

So, the artist is still going to get paid, but the publisher isn’t. The problem is, the publishers are the ones who have traditionally kept the lions share of the profits and so are the wealthy lobbyists trying to get laws made to let them sue Jammie Thomas millions of dollars for daring to make her own copies and give them to her friends.

The issue seems to be that, with massive, “free” distribution, there isn’t any “market” at all… the P2P file-sharing system does not provide anything in exchange to the authors of works.

“Moreover, people have their liberty restored to share and build upon their own culture (as used to be the case until the privileges of copyright and patent were enacted in the 18th century).”

In the 18th century, and previously, there were no means to freely distribute intellectual property to millions, without apparent cost; books and works of art were physical objects, costly to produce and distribute, thus automatically limiting their audience and reproduction, and pretty much insuring that they were not “shared” for free with others.

1) Suspend people’s liberty to make copies of their own property so that everyone is forced to pay for copies from authorised sources (copyright).
2) When you can’t stop people copying, institute an Internet Tax and then divvy up the amount to copyright holders according to how prevalent copies and derivatives are.
3) If that doesn’t gain traction make a new law that prohibits unlicensed possession of copyrighted works, in conjunction with an auditing system to make it easy for people to automatically pay license fees for all copyrighted works they receive and all uses they might want to put them to.
4) Ultimately, it would be best to abolish copyright (and patent) to restore a free market in the exchange of art and knowledge. Audiences for movies or music can then pay for the production of these things directly. Moreover, people have their liberty restored to share and build upon their own culture (as used to be the case until the privileges of copyright and patent were enacted in the 18th century).

If the system that makes it possible to make a good living by creating new books,music, film, is broken, how do you intend to replace it?

What valuable content have _you_ , every reader, added to the world? What content has the Piratpartiet added to the world? How many people are busily P2P’ing Piratpartiet creations?

You can’t have it both ways! It’s either all open or it’s well balanced with each person using their right to privacy, WITHOUT invasion!