On Wed, 05 Jan 2005 11:40:15 -0500, Jeff Wisnia
wrote:

Richard J Kinch wrote:

Jeff Wisnia writes:



If it is a question of "ought", then my *personal opinion* hinges simply
on the making of money from others' works, vs casual use. If you're
going to sing a copyrighted work in the shower, then that's OK (despite
what the copyright fundamentalists say). If you're going to sell
recordings of your performance, or tickets to a live event, then no.
The author should have rights to any money, but casual use does not
involve money.


I guess that puts me among the fundamentalists, though I don't think
even I would have a problem with singing in the shower, depending of
course on who was in there with me doing the singing.

It's the part about the author having rights to money that bothers me. I
look at it from a credit/debit perspective, and when a person
photocopies copyrighted material because they want to read it, whether
for casual or for business use, they are potentially depriving the
author of a sale.

The copyright thief's oft expressed argument is, "Well I never would
have bought a copy, it isn't worth what they're asking, so the author
didn't lose a sale."

Assuming for the sake of argument that the thief is correct, that
still doesn't account for the sales lost from copies of the copies.
There is economic damage here, no matter how loudly the theives
protest.

Now, that said, you can make a strong economic argument for making
some of your work as an author freely available. If you go to the Baen
Books web site, you can view or download the text of my first novel
"Wizard's Bane" for free. Do it with my blessing. Likewise, I hold
compilation copyright on the collection of aphorisms that appear at
the head of the chapters of my books. That collection, or parts of it,
are widely available on the Web, again with my blessing. As far as I'm
concerned, the people who repeat those sayings are helping to build an
audience for my books.

Further, the position of the record and movie companies in
'intellectual property' strikes me as absurd and unworkable.
Going after a fan who has written a piece of fiction about popular
characters is, in my opinion, both pointless and counter-productive.

In other words, I think some large companies are trying to push the
whole business of copyright much too far.

However that is utterly different from the kind of 'copy at will'
nonsense that some people are putting forward. The record companies'
position is damaging, but what these idiots propose would be even more
damaging.

--RC




"Sometimes history doesn't repeat itself. It just yells
'can't you remember anything I've told you?' and lets
fly with a club.
-- John W. Cambell Jr.