There Is Never a Need to Justify Sharing Culture and Knowledge

http://falkvinge.net/2012/12/19/there-is-never-a-need-to-justify-sharing-culture-and-knowledge/

by mtgx • 14 years ago

32 48 14 years ago

rayiner8• 14 years ago

I don't think you have a right to "share" episodes of Veronica Mars. The justification for sharing "culture" is dramatically diminished, in my opinion, when that "culture" is purely commercial. There are a huge number of artists willing to share their culture for free, yet sites like Pirate Bay seem nonetheless to be filled with commercial "culture" not created for the sake of culture itself, but for the sake of profit, and not intended to be shared.

jivatmanx2• 14 years ago

What about Hemingway, T.S. Elliot, etc?

Practically any copyrighted material still being consumed after, say, 30 years is of significant cultural interest.

rayiner8• 14 years ago

I don't think there is any good reason to have a copyright term longer than 30 years.

muuh-gnu• 14 years ago

> I don't think you have a right to "share"

But you should.

> when that "culture" is purely commercial.

You dont need a justification at all. You want to share with your fellow people, thats it. People love other people and love to share things they have with them. Sharing is caring. Suppressing that inherently human feeling and urge simply to make somebody make more money is insane.

The problem with the whole copyright debate is that the so called "democracy", aka will of the people, is completely and utterly disregarded. The process of law making is completely and utterly driven by special interests and enforced against all public resistence from top down. The issue of copyright is closed up in a dictatorship bubble and fiercely guarded against democracy.

The people, and _only_ the people (like in a direct referendum) should decide what they value more: their natural, human right to share useful information with their fellow humans, or to collectively enforce a kind of for-profit censorship in order to incentivize commercial production. No single authority should be able to make such a far-reaching and intrusive decision for them.

Such a referendum has never been held, and therefore such laws are undemocratic, and for that single reason alone I and a lot of other people do not feel obliged to obey copyright laws. It is as simple as that. Requirig people to obey and respect copyright restrictions simply because some special interest calls it a law makes as sense as requiring them to obey and respect ius primae noctis only because some special interest calls it a law. To be respected, a law has to be widely agreed upon, and copyright is as widely agreed upon as ius primae noctis.

rayiner8• 14 years ago

If we're talking about natural human tendencies, I'd argue that any supposed "urge to share" is weaker than the evident urge to control the products of one's own labor. People who know nothing about intellectual property still get extremely upset when they perceive that someone else "stole their idea" or "ripped them off."

Also, claiming the copyright regime is not the product of democracy is utterly ludicrous. If people cared so much about this "natural right to share" they would vote out the people who pass restrictive copyright legislation. But they don't. Claiming that the results of the democratic process are in fact not democratic for various hand-wavey reasons is the last-ditch argument of people who don't like the outcome of the democratic process because it didn't come out their way.

yungchin4• 14 years ago

While I agree with your conclusions regarding copyright, the above seems to me a fallacious appeal to democracy. If abolishing intellectual monopolies is better for society, we should be able to make a case for that regardless whether most people think so or not.

cafard• 14 years ago

I do want to share some things with my fellow people. I have lent or given them books and will continue to lend or give more. I did not find that purchasing said books suppressed my inherently human feeling, though it did affect my cash flow.

Copyright laws in the US and UK have been established by the national legislatures; in the US case, this is a power assigned to Congress by the Constitution. I am not aware of anything ever in the nature of a national referendum, or do you have in mind an international one?

I do agree that the copyright laws have got out of hand, though.

subsystem• 14 years ago

You missed the point of the post. If sharing would be the default then the work in question would only be restricted as long as the commercial interest (not the "moral" one) was strong enough to warrant such a restriction. So whatever cultural importance a work would have is irrelevant, since it's the restriction that should be motivated and not the other way around.

I also think it's a strange argument since there aren't, in most countries, any distinction in copyright between works of cultural importance and other works.

thomaslangston• 14 years ago

William Shakespeare's plays were commercial endeavors.

betterunix5• 14 years ago

"not created for the sake of culture itself, but for the sake of profit, and not intended to be shared."

Are we supposed to care about the intention of the creators? By putting the creators' intentions first, you are promoting commercialized culture -- you are turning pieces of the culture into an exploitable asset.

When commercial entertainment is shared, we get non-commercial entertainment. Sometimes it is silly, like the OVER 9000 videos on Youtube. Sometimes it is artistic, like remixes of hit songs. If we want to have a culture that is not controlled by profiteering gluttons, we need to ignore their wishes when it comes to sharing the entertainment they create; otherwise, they will always drown out whatever culture might emerge on its own (as they do today).

rayiner8• 14 years ago

I referenced the intentions of creators not to argue that we should give effect to their wishes, but because intention helps us distinguish "knowledge and culture" from "entertainment."

scotty793• 14 years ago

I have a cool story to tell you. It's called "Spiderguy". But you have to pay me first. Also once I tell you the story you can't tell it to anyone else. You can just tell them about it. Also if you don't pay me and anyone else will offer to tell you this story then no matter how curious you are you should stick fingers into your ears and not listen to it. Or I'll sue ya.

What do you say?

VikingCoder3• 14 years ago

That sounds great - as long as the story you tell is compelling, and you do it in a way that captivates and surprises me.

I support art.

If it turns out that your depiction of Spiderguy sucked, I'm less likely to support you in the future.

If you want to share your toys, I think that makes you awesome. But if you don't want to share your toys, I don't think you should have to.

scotty793• 14 years ago

How do you feel about me suing you for not sticking fingers into you ears when someone else is telling the story and you listen to it because of your curiosity I instigated?

jstanley2• 14 years ago

I agree with most of what the article says, with one exception:

"We don’t determine what civil liberties our children get based on who can make money and who can’t; we base them on what our parents fought and bled for."

Lots of people fought and bled over lots of issues, but the act of fighting and bleeding has absolutely no bearing on whether they were right or wrong. This just seems to be deliberately emotionally-loaded language, and the article would be better off without it.

graue• 14 years ago

I used Ctrl-F and didn't find the word "determine" or "bled" anywhere on the page. Did you read a different article?

Falkvinge• 14 years ago

This looks like a different article - namely, "The Analog Letter: It is entirely reasonable to demand that our children inherit the rights of our parents".

http://falkvinge.net/2012/11/06/the-analog-letter-its-entire...

tzs• 14 years ago

Making a copy of something for a friend is sharing. Making millions of copies for complete strangers is not.

There Is Never a Need to Justify Sharing Culture and Knowledge

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