Re: BBC tell whoppers on downloads

Alex Heney wrote:
On 27 Mar 2006 03:53:51 -0800, news@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

Alex Heney wrote:
<snip>


Copyright protection only really became necessary when copying became
reasonably cheap and easy.

Correct, and copyright used to make some sort of sense when the
economics suited it. However, the economics has changed again, copying
is now not just cheap, but effectively zero in price, not just easy but
trivial, and the fixed costs have also effectively melted away due to
the wide and routine availability of the necessary copy equipment,
which stands there waiting to be used.


Which, of course, just makes copyright legislation even *more*
necessary.


Not at all. The thing is, when the cost of a copy drops to zero, there
is no actual added value in the provision of a copy - if you hold
copyright, you can provide potentially infinite copies at approaching
zero cost. The license in effect becomes a license to print money,
because the only value is in added elements (physical CD,
documentation, services, support etc). That is what Microsoft has
exploited to such good effect, for example if they "give" away
"discounted" licenses" for software which in effect costs them nothing
to supply in larger volume. Almost equivalent to being able to issue
their own currency, and not a good thing to have in the system.


Under those conditions, conventional copyright and licensing stops
working properly, and we need a new way of operating (copyright gets in
the way).

The possibility that copyright "gets in the way" does not even come
close to existing.

It may well "get in the way" of people wanting stuff without paying
for it.

It is quite simply not even remotely possible that it could get in the
way of the creation of new works.

Of course it can - it can obstruct the production of new derivative
works, for example, which might otherwise transcend the original. It
can obstruct the production of works (documentaries come to mind) which
might include portions of copyright works, due to the increasing
tendency to demand license fees for every fragment.

I might not have such an issue with copyright if fair use rights were
being maintained, if there were sensible expiry terms (maybe 7 or 14
years, given today's ever faster product cycles), and if digital
restrictions technology which imposed and enforced conditions over and
above even today's copyright was outlawed by statute.

Unfortunately that sort of compromise isn't on the table, and the
reality is that works produced before I was born won't enter the public
domain in my lifetime, if ever, and it's getting harder to legally
purchase content without digital restrictions where I retain fair use
rights etc. If we're in that kind of game, then I start to reconsider
whether I accept "copyright" as we've had it in the past at all, or
whether to take the ball away and start a different kind of game.

--
JPB

.

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