arg criticized begins here:
quoted 10 lines there's nothing inherently
>there's nothing inherently
>correct about that process, it's just one of many-as
>is mp3 file sharing--as is the labels giving the
>product away and asking for donations--as is majors
>going back to the vinyl/tape formats and eschewing
>digital media in the most blatant greedy capitalist
>Luddite move ever. None of these is the inherently
>correct method. It seems that you want to cling to
>the traditional way of doing business, which is fine,
>but not necessary.
and now the criticism:
quoted 9 lines You are ignoring copyright which is not a force of
> You are ignoring copyright which is not a force of
> nature but a historically
> recent law constructed with the purpose of allowing
> businesses like record
> labels to exist. Your argument is logically no
> different to 'I can buy a gun
> so why shouldn't I shoot someone in the head - you
> can't stop me, I can do
> it and if I want to I will'.
Huh? My arg is basically:
1. there is no inherently correct way to distribute
music
2. therefore, no one way is "necessary," or the
correct way.
A little bit different from "I can buy a gun..." as
you say. The principle there's more like "I can
achieve the means to do damage--so why not do damage?"
I'm not talking about doing damage to anyone or
anything. I fail to see the meaningful correlation
between what I said and what you say I said.
As for copyright, I never once took issue with what
was legal or illegal. I agree with your point that
downloading mp3s might infringe on an artist's legal
rights. I simply do not care about this aspect of
copyright law, which is why that wasn't a
consideration in my original post--or I guess more
precisely, it wasn't a concern of Muffin's email
(don't forget I was just replying to his post, to his
points). As for working to relax the copyright law,
since I don't care about how d/l mp3s infriges on it
in the first place, I find it a slim probability that
you'll find me wasting my time there.
I hope you don't think it's too far to go to say that
your points have a few fundamental assumptions (which
don't compel me):
1. Because downloading mp3s breaks copyright law, it
is wrong.
2. There is a cause/effect relationship between
breaking copyright law and dwindling sales/the decline
of record labels.
I'd say point 2 is the more interesting, less moral
question--and more susceptible to a few prods. Muffin
didn't take this one on, for good reason--it's
impossible to prove. There are too many factors for
financial decline, it's just as easy to argue that
p2p's brilliant virus-like spreading combats the
financial decline of record labels by encouraging
people to get the "real thing" down at the
shop/through mail order. Some people buy the cds,
some people don't. But is it the case that person X,
who downloaded album Y, would have bought it if
downloading weren't an option? Uncertain. I think
that's just as likely a scenario as the obvious
"leech" syndrome that everyone's so concerned about,
and it does sweet F.A. to a record company's bottom
line.
As for "the proponents of freedownloading are not
making a serious argument here and are just inviting
all kinds of invasive tollgate-type
technology..."--there's no argument to be made. P2p
exists, and it'll keep going. Is it right? What will
labels do? Neither of those questions requires an
argument to be made to justify freedownloading. As
for the tollgate thing, if you're saying that labels,
due to declining sales/desperation/conniving are going
to do away with all physically tangible music products
and replace that with a public database, I highly
doubt it. People will continue to make tangible music
products because that's the tradition we've become
used to. Djing will support vinyl. CDs are still
incredibly popular. Some tollgate type thing might be
instituted alongside the physical products as a new
gimmick, but that doesn't preclude the idea of other
p2p networks. Who the fuck wants to use a public
database like the one you describe, when all it takes
is one person to upload a given file into a program
like soulseek and viola!, instant sharing. The
alternatives will always exist.
For the record, I have no issue with Luddites, I was
simply employing the term because it was apt. I see
no discrepancy between a neo-Luddite movement and the
idea of p2p. Perhaps they're just revisionist
Luddites? :)
Ben
ps - if I don't reply to each objection/email I
receive on this post, it's because the last hour of my
life was spent composing the above, and I'm not going
to give up too many more on this topic. The
disturbing thing is that I was going to work on music
during that hour...
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