Y’know WHY folks like Crosbie want copyright abolished?
Because the corporate lobbyists keep buying themselves longer and longer terms.

As to your other stuff about how “people happily pay for CD’s” — that has WHAT to do with copyright, exactly?
Every time I buy a “used” book or CD, by your “logic”, because of the first-sale doctrine, I “hit creative people where it hurts the most” because the rights-holders don’t get paid.

I also don’t think that allofmp3.com was neccesarily the best approach. I don’t think there IS a single “best” approach.
Magnatune represents a step forward — free streaming, but you get to name your own price — from a minimum up to whatever you *want* to pay, and you know in advance exactly how much of it is actually going to the artists themselves, not getting sucked up by the labels.

Trying not to be “snarky” here, but your jabs about the “Lessig crowd” almost made me cry! We’re REAL PEOPLE, Damnit! Sniffle sniffle boo hoo hoo.

(Enough “sly little cracks”, folks. Obviously y’all don’t share my sense of humor.

I think that’s not only false, but foolish. Why would anybody chose to pay for something they could just as easily get for free? For every one of you who feels like forking over cash for free items, there will be thousands of reasonable people getting that stuff for free.

The future isn’t at all in “monetizing” digital files. It’s in accepting that those files have no monetary value but infinite promotional value. Use the files to create fans, then provide those fans with ways to buy things that are actually worth something.

Creating a digital version of a “record store” and then forcing people to use it is exactly what the RIAA has been trying, and failing, to do for years.

Crosbie wants copyright abolished – plain and simple. Look up Crosbie on Google and he posts day and night about abolishing copyright, it’s his single issue.

But people happily pay for CDs now and we’ll happily pay for a great P2P file sharing service. The commenter here who says Spotify isn’t P2P is dead right, it isn’t.

Billy, please remember that Crosbie Fitch and the Lessig crowd are not representative of the views of P2P file sharers, we’d like to vote with our wallets but can’t. No need to pay attention to sideshow extremists, they have had their 15 minutes.

Cheers Billy.

1. Retract your ‘overwhelming’ support for Liy Allen and her corporate paymasters. Do NOT support throttling (even for ‘incorrigible’ file-sharers) because doing so inevitably demonizes the entire p2p community, and in so doing, concedes the corporate labels’ entire argument.

2. Issue a statement advocating that copyright terms be reduced to something more reasonable/less overtly pernicious. (Remember, Billy: for all your bravado about how p2pers are ’stealing your apples’, the fact is, those ‘apples’ were — and are — indended to eventually enter the Public Domain. Monopoly privileges like copyright are just that — PRIVILEGES, and, as the p2p thing illustrates, you/your corporate handers ignore that at your peril.

3. Read Lawrence Lessig’s book “Free Culture”. It’s available on the Net for free, and it’s not that long. Hell, there’s even an “audiobook” version for free download, so you don’t even have THAT excuse.
If you’re going to run an ‘advocacy’ lobby, it only makes sense that you understand at least something about the issues you’re lobbying about.

4. Please stop recycling corporate boilerplate about the ‘threat’ posed by p2p. Despite their whimpering, the corporate entertainment industry is doing just fine. P2p represents a potential threat to them, alright: the threat that folks might be able to get noticed WITHOUT having a multi-billion dollar corporate propaganda machine behind them.
(You, of ALL people, should understand the inherent appeal of DIY, REAL grassroots, etc. After all, you did come out of the Punk scene, which was pretty much built on fanzines and GENUINELY independent labels, some of which were thrown together very literally on a shoestring budget.)

Particular emphasis on items 2 and 4.
I’ve already pointed out a completely viable and proven sales model.

How do you feel about item 2 ?

That’s not productive either. To do that or suggest that I would is a bit insulting, deliberately I think, no matter.

The best argument for filesharing’s ability to make money for the copyright holder ( i’ll
use the terms the RIAA uses in court, I am fully aware that the rightsholder is almost never
the artist ) is the business model that still exists, but the RIAA members did their best to
destroy.

AllOf MP3.com

They charged per byte downloaded.
This meant that higher quality cost more, but even that was a modest enough fee that
many were willing to pay.

A whole lot of people, all over the world.

Other benefits of that model …

It was very easy to track exactly what artists were downloaded, and how much was spent
on them, so calculating how much each artists should get paid was a breeze.
In spite of what the labels say, they were paying the proper fees to the Russian collective
society, so why the hell did the labels work so hard to bring it down, when it was the ideal
selling model ?

For one, they didn’t come up with it, so they couldn’t control it, which meant ANYONE could
easily be on all ofmp3.
They didn’t like the price point, insisting on a fee per ‘track’ model which is nonsense on the
internet. they want a dollar per track and it’s up to the RIAA what quality you get for that.
Consumer choice appears to be a dirty word for the RIAA members.
The fact that it was easy to track who should get paid is not a selling point for executives,
who need to cloak the cash flow. It’s hard to hide who’s getting the money when it’s so
trackable. The RIAA members prefer models based on ‘estimates’. One really must
wonder why that is.

The ideal model was there, and slapped down.
It proved that people would pay for DRM free music, at a reasonable price.

Your industry had it, and smashed it.
Ask them why ?

Leave the insults at the door, I have, you can too.

I daresay there are many who would like to portray this clash of perspectives as an encounter between artists trying to make a decent living and a den of thieves. It’s a little more fundamental than that. It’s a conflict between unnatural law that says that information can’t be copied and natural law that says it can. The outcome of that conflict is obvious to anyone familiar with the schism concerning geo vs heliocentricity.

What we’re left with is the problem of a lack of facilities that enable artists to exchange their work for the money of their audience. It’s a problem caused through the neglect of three centuries, a period in which no-one needed such facilities because of the reproduction monopoly known as copyright. Artists sold their work to printers, and printers sold copies that no-one else could legally produce. Copyright didn’t have to be legislated, but it was, and as a consequence the evolution of facilities for exchanges between artists and their audiences ground to a halt.

That’s why I’m trying to be upfront with you that this is the situation. We are all interested in how to buy and sell intellectual work in a world in which one can no longer sell copies at monopoly protected prices. If kids can make copies for nothing, you’re not going to be able to change that through holy fiat, education, or bandwidth squeezing, and so you’re not going to be able to sell them copies. Fortunately, kids can’t make your music (at least not without years of effort), so you can at least sell them that.

If this rapprochement is to discover how to stop kids file-sharing you’re barking up the wrong tree. If it’s to discover how to sell your music to your audience, well, come on up.

It’s a nasty piece of legislation and should be abolished.

It would still be nasty even if it exempted non-commercial infringement. You can’t look forward to such a ‘reform’ in any case because it both denies the copyright holder their monopoly and the public their liberty to exchange their labour in a free market.

So, it’s really irrelevant to copyright infringement and the definition of piracy whether file-sharers exchange files for love or money. If you manufacture a copy in whole or part of a work subject to copyright without the holder’s permission then you infringe copyright, if you distribute such copies to a large number of others (for love or money) then you are a pirate.

Right or wrong is not defined by piracy. It is not wrong to share and build upon mankind’s culture. The wrong is in granting a privilege that prohibits it. It is the interference with a merchant’s trade and monopolies thereof that gives rise to the term of piracy.

<>

How long have we been discussing this on p2pnet? Since Friday. Have I used any of those accusative words in my posts? I don’t believe that one download equals one lost sale.

<>

Do I believe that throttling is a good idea? No I don’t – as far as I’m concerned there is no technical solution. Do I think it would help our case with the filesharing population? No I don’t, that’s why I’m here to have this discussion, to try to move the debate on.

Having said that, if you are just going to run away if anyone says Boo! to you, then we are not going to get very far. Because there are people out there who think that throttling in a good idea and some of them are supporters of the FAC. They come to our events, like the one we held last night in London (check out our website for the topics we hoped to cover – I wasn’t there so I don’t know how it went)

Our task is to convince them that the suppression of illegal filesharing is a long-term, highly expensive, technologically fraught strategy with serious implications for personal privacy. It is questionable whether any of the money saved will ever find its way to the artists who have suffered loss of income.

It would be counter-productive for us to present our fellow artists with a pro-filesharing argument. That is your job. We want to facilitate that discussion, which is why I’m here posting at 12.35am West Coast time after my gig.

We want your input in this debate – we can’t make any progress without it. That doesn’t mean that we all have to agree with each other all the time on every aspect of this debate. What matters is that our goal is the same. What I want from this process is for artists to be able to make a living selling their music over the internet and for P2P to play an enabling role in that process.

What do you want?

You claimed news on the web are getting paid. Maybe your outlets are to be paid, but there are others who are to be free.

And we are getting a quality PAPER newspaper now for free, with advertisements.

http://alexanderlebedev.blogspot.com/2009/10/london-evening-standard-will-go-free-12.html

P2P users have been repeatedly labeled pirates by the Recording Industry, and many of us wear it as a badge of honor. However, by others, the pirate label is resented, so you’re probably safer using the more agreeable term when talking about folks who trade files without remuneration, so as not to distract from the issues.

“What the consultation’s proposals singularly fail to do is differentiate between the downloading and sharing of music by music fans, on a non-commercial basis, and those who seek financial gain or commercial advantage from such activity. This second group of “commercial” P2P users and facilitators should be pursued with the full force of the law as is the case with illegal CD plants in the offline world. Ordinary music fans and consumers should not be criminalised because of the failings of a legacy sector of business to adapt sufficiently fast to new technological challenges.

have a good look through the FAC website and i know a lot of your concerns will be alleviated.

excerpts from
Joint Statement on P2P Legislation
10th September 2009

“However we have serious reservations about the content and scope of the proposed legislation outlined in the consultation on P2P file-sharing. Processes of monitoring, notification and sanction are not conducive to achieving a vibrant, functional, fair and competitive market for music. As a result we believe that the specific questions asked by the consultation are not only unanswerable but indicate a mindset so far removed from that of the general public and music consumer that it seems an extraordinarily negative document.

The very fuzzy estimates for the annual benefits of such legislation (£200 million per year) make clear that such estimates are based firmly upon the premise that a P2P downloaded track equals a lost sale. This “substitutional” argument is, in reality, no more than “lobbyists’ speak”: it has little support from logic and no economist would seek to weave such a number into a metric aimed at quantifying a ‘value gap’ for the industries challenged by P2P.

In contrast to the lack of any credible evidence for the size of the substitutional effect, there is evidence that repeat file-sharers of music are also repeat purchasers of music, movies, documentaries etc. Recent research by MusicAlly has demonstrated the continued popularity of the CD as the purchased product of choice by many music fans. This combined with the continued significance of the CD in the revenue balance of record labels, suggests a much more complex equation in which file-sharing may erode sales, but where it may also promote other revenue streams. For this reason it is dangerous to view the downloading of music as the direct online equivalent of CD sales.

Much online activity surrounding the sharing of music often coincides with a great deal of fan support for the artist concerned. The centrality of the artist in the new music ecology is such that the lobbying by labels to continue to try to sue or sanction music fans must be placed in a broader context of those fans’ behaviour. It must also be seen in the context not of the loss to a particular business constituency but whether it represents a real loss to the economy as a whole.”

*****
dredd, there’s a whole lot more there and i think you and others should read it and the rest of the website. it certainly cleared a lot up for me.

Of course we’re interested, as long as the ‘openness’ of which you speak comes from you as well as us.

I haven’t seen too much of that .. yet, but i’ll wait.

” I suggest you exercise your pet peeves somewhere else – and make sure you clean up after them. ”

Be sure to do the same, and leave the words ‘thief’ , ‘pirate’ , ’stealing’ out of the conversation, and
leave the ‘Download equals a lost sale’ rhetoric outside and you just might find everyone can be
reasonable.

But,
the moment it is suggested , once again, that cutting off or throttling internet access without proof or due
process is the way to go, any illusion of open debate will disappear.

Do you support that ?
Do you think that’s the way to go for the general filesharing population ?

I did notice you haven’t addressed that directly

When the RIAA come after you, they don’t do it on behalf of session musicians who don’t have copyrights, they do it in the name of featured artists whose copyrights they own. Now there is a debate to be had about how shabbily the industry treats session musicians, but it’s not this debate. I know you’d like it to be, because it would enable you to dismiss me as an elitist scewjob. Sadly, the arguments are not that cut and dried. And calling me names is not going to change that reality.

I suggest you exercise your pet peeves somewhere else – and make sure you clean up after them.

Crosbie,

This two pill thing…. its not such a black and white issue. Many musicians do both and manage to make a living. I know it would make things much more easy for you if you could force me to chose between music or copies, but we’re going to have to be a little more open to debate if we want to create an environment in which P2P is recognised as a powerful promotional tool. That’s what I want from our discussions here. You interested?

catflap,

session musicians don’t generally get paid beyond their session fee. The reasoning is that they don’t have to pay back the advances that we have signed up to. However, the Musicians Union is fighting for session players to get royalties after a certain period and FAC supports them in this fight.