2 Comments

1. Nattt says:

   June 7, 2008 at 11:03 am

   Bad Article
   It’s a bad article. Interesting from the historical perspective, but bad in that it characterizes you, Michael, as a copyright “free for all” whacko. We know that this is not the case. I’d love to see you write a strongly worded response to that article, which does not mention the issues of DRM at all.
2. Anonymous says:

   June 8, 2008 at 2:21 am

   Good Comments
   Truly one of the best comments posted on that link:

   The historical examples of artists losing profit via unlicensed copying is subtly different from the current state of affairs. These are examples of distributors in other jurisdictions profiting from the work of an artist w/o their permission. In each of the examples, the jurisdiction is attempting to bolster a newly minted industry at the expense of an established industry.

   The current digital copyright issue is a case of existing (licensed) distributors worried losing their profit margin. There’s no proof that downloading has actually damaged this profit margin. In fact, changes in distribution (i.e. Walmart’s cheaper prices) may be the primary source of losses in the music industry.

   In any case, those who download a work w/o license do not map directly into these historical examples. First, they typically use the unlicensed work for personal use rather than selling it (as a distributor might). Second, there’s no indication that they would have actually purchased the work had they not gained access to an unlicensed copy.