From: Looking for a Win/Win
The war between intellectual property and digital freedom is based on the following “control” assumption:
The creators of useful ideas and content must become the “owners” of their ideas and their content, with the right to control the use of those ideas and content, in order to receive payment via licensing.
This assumption has both a moral dimension and a pragmatic dimension. Morally, the creator of an idea or a creative work has “made” something, therefore the thing they “made” is theirs, and if it’s theirs, then they should be able to control how it is used. Pragmatically, the “ownership” of intellectual property provides a means for the owners to receive income for their efforts, and this encourages the creators of content to create even more content.
The “control” assumption places the creators of intellectual property in direct confrontation with digital freedom. Because with digital freedom, there is no control. Files can be copied, and no one has to pay anything to copyright owners. Algorithms can be implemented, and no one has to pay any patent licence fees.
Now intellectual property has both a moral justification and a pragmatic justification, but so does digital freedom. If we are not free to copy data and write programs on our computers, then we are not free. And that is a bad thing. The opposite of freedom is tyranny. If we don’t control what happens on our computers, then someone else does.
Notice the definition of freedom involving the ability to do whatever you want, regardless of whether or not it is a violation of someone else’s freedoms. Because you can copy something, it is automatically okay to do.
I assume the author allows the copying of his article so I will continue to quote him.
To find if there is an alternative, we have to examine our assumptions. So here is the “control” assumption again:
The creators of useful ideas and content must become the “owners” of their ideas and their content, with the right to control the use of those ideas and content, in order to receive payment via licensing.
As I have explained, this assumption has both a moral basis and a pragmatic basis. But what is the real goal here? Is the “protection” of digital content the real issue? Do movie script writers dream only of being able to control the ability of their audience to copy files from one computer to another? Maybe some of them do, and I don’t actually know any movie script writers (at least not any with a Hollywood contract), but I am going to be generous and believe that movie script writers in general do not desire to control the information infrastructure of Western civilisation, and that what they really want is to get paid. And I will be even more generous, and believe that most of them want to get paid, if, and only if, people like their movies.
So here is my proposed alternative assumption:
The creators of useful ideas and content should receive payment.
Apparently slavery is okay, i.e. it is okay to dictate to someone what their payment will be as long as its some sort of payment. How about room and board, how about a dollar a week, thats payment recieved. Damn those selfish bastards for wanting to dictate to me what I should pay them for their product!
The theory of intellectual property is that everyone is less free to copy and use digital content, leaving each person “free” to decide whether or not to pay for the right to use licensed content.
If we value digital freedom, and we believe that content creators deserve to be paid, then we may have to reconsider the freedom “not to pay”.
So not only are the producers of “useful ideas” getting their rights violated, but also those people who will never want to buy their products have to get their product(money) stolen as ransom to be paid to the first group of victimized producers for the sake of those that want free music and movies?? That’s a genius solution!
There will be those who value this freedom even more than either of the first two items. But in the end, we can’t have it all, and as a society we have to decide which matters to us the most.
Hmmmm, collectivism. Where have you been all my life? You justify my hatred for those bastards who value life above all else.
If we lose the freedom “not to pay”, what this means in practice is that there will be some kind of “digital content tax”, which will be charged against the facilities that people use when they consume digital content (i.e. computers, media players and Internet connections), and which will be allocated somehow to those creators judged most deserving to receive payment for their efforts.
That magic friggin word!
The easiest option is to do nothing. Let the “war” play out. If Intellectual Property wins, then freedom is lost. Presumably Western Civilisation will decay into tyranny, collapse after a few centuries, and then we can all start again. Or Digital Freedom will win, and we will just tolerate the loss of Hollywood and commercial pop music.
Of course, there’s no third option, involving neither sacrifice, nor “war.” Someone has to be sacrificed to somebody, anybody, right?