scott wrote:
>>  One thing I don't understand is why the music industry is so privileged
>> over other industries?
> 
> Well the size of the industry can't be the reason.  Worldwide there was 
> 20x - 30x more spent on software than on music.
> 
> I guess the music industry just got their act together as a group to 
> protect their interests and managed to convince lots of governments to 
> their way of thinking.
> 
> Actually lots of big industries manage to get special treatment from the 
> government, cigarette manufacturers, car manufacturers etc, so I guess 
> the software industry is just the odd one out.  Maybe MS and Adobe etc 
> should get together and get some taxes on DVD-Rs to be shared out?

Software companies have the reputation of making humongous scads of 
money and getting very very rich, whereas the picture of struggling 
artists just barely getting by remains a popular conception of the music 
industry.  More to the point, a legislator can pretend to subscribe to 
these opinions while crafting legislation.

And this is the key.  As any observer of Western culture can affirm, if 
you discriminate on the basis of race, sex, religion, nationality, or 
physical handicap, there is somebody who makes a living out of trying to 
stop you.  But discrimination against the successful is considered a 
perfectly acceptable attitude in most of the world, and certainly in 
most of the world's governments.  Most people simply don't care if a 
rich man gets shafted, and are quite deaf to the idea that it is just as 
wrong to rob a rich man as it is to rob a poor one.  Many people assume 
that every fortune is founded on something other than honest hard work, 
and in the process of their political activity, they accomplish little 
more than making it even more difficult to get rich by means of hard work.

The functional flaw in most democracies is that their respective 
governments are empowered to sacrifice the interests of some of the 
people, people who have done nothing wrong, in the name of some benefit 
to others.  As long as that remains the case, some people will get 
screwed over, and the only remaining question is who gets screwed, and 
for whose benefit.

Regards,
John

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> Software companies have the reputation of making humongous scads of 
> money and getting very very rich, whereas the picture of struggling 
> artists just barely getting by remains a popular conception of the music 
> industry.  More to the point, a legislator can pretend to subscribe to 
> these opinions while crafting legislation.

You should compare software companies to record companies, and artists 
to programmers. Who keeps the big bucks?

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Warp wrote:
>   Recordable media gets taxed for potential music piracy. This money goes
> to the music industry. Recordable media does not get taxed for potential
> software piracy, and the software industry doesn't get a dime from this.
>   The authors of the music IP get paid part of these taxes for doing
> absolutely nothing, software authors don't get any such free payments.
> 

OTOH our copyright law says that we're allowed to copy copyrighted music 
(only for personal usage only, naturally - and practically if breaking 
the copy protection ain't hard*) in extense of the media-fee - but not 
to copy copyrighted software.

*) The same law announces that it's illegal to break a technically 
effective copy protection. After that the very same law announces that 
*any* action made by the record company to stop copying the music is 
considered technically effective. So literally that "#!"#!"#!#!** law 
says that if the case holds a "please don't copy this" -text printed on 
it, it's a technically effective copy protection. Luckily practical 
justice overrides this with common sense and technically effective 
really means technically effective.

**) I'm not against copyrights or copyright laws mainly. I'm just 
against our quartelry-prethinked halfly-written, technically retarded 
copyright law.

-- 
Eero "Aero" Ahonen
    http://www.zbxt.net
       aer### [at] removethiszbxtnetinvalid

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Stephen wrote:
> We could always try a dictatorship, a benevolent one of course. Any
> volunteers? :)

It actually works out fairly well if the leaders are interested in 
helping the people and go on to pick others with similar desires. Unlike 
hereditary rulers, if your emperor can pick five or ten likely 
candidates and train them from children, then pick one to take over that 
he thinks will be most beneficent, it seems to work out well.

The problem is it all falls down when you get a nasty in. It's bistable: 
either good or bad.

(I'm thinking of some of the chinese and japanese emperors, for example.)

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     "That's pretty. Where's that?"
          "It's the Age of Channelwood."
     "We should go there on vacation some time."

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Warp wrote:
> scott <sco### [at] laptopcom> wrote:
>> Maybe MS and Adobe etc should 
>> get together and get some taxes on DVD-Rs to be shared out?
> 
>   No thanks! 

I'd go for a tax on writable computer media if the money went to fund 
FOSS development. :-)

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     "That's pretty. Where's that?"
          "It's the Age of Channelwood."
     "We should go there on vacation some time."

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On Tue, 01 Apr 2008 13:21:11 -0700, Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom>
wrote:

>
>The problem is it all falls down when you get a nasty in. It's bistable: 
>either good or bad.

Often starting off with good intentions.
-- 

Regards
     Stephen

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Eero Ahonen <aer### [at] removethiszbxtnetinvalid> wrote:
> OTOH our copyright law says that we're allowed to copy copyrighted music 
> (only for personal usage only, naturally - and practically if breaking 
> the copy protection ain't hard*) in extense of the media-fee - but not 
> to copy copyrighted software.

  The new copyright law forbids copying music from illegal sources.
The vast majority of internet sources are defined as illegal, so you
basically can't download music legally (except from legal online shops).

  (OTOH eavesdropping internet traffic is still illegal, so how they are
going to enforce the copyright law is anybody's guess. I think a police
officer commented on the new copyright law that a law doesn't make sense
when it's impossible to enforce it.)

> *) The same law announces that it's illegal to break a technically 
> effective copy protection. After that the very same law announces that 
> *any* action made by the record company to stop copying the music is 
> considered technically effective.

  The same law also says that it is legal to circumvent the protections
if it's necessary to listen to the music in the first place.

  The new copyright is really messed up. Nobody understands it fully.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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John VanSickle <evi### [at] hotmailcom> wrote:
> Warp wrote:
> >   My question is why. Why is the music industry specifically so privileged?
>
> Because they have friends in the legislature.
>
> Regards,
> John

They can tap into natural sympathies on both sides of the aisle.  On one hand,
Barbara Streisand and Hollywood are in bed with the Democrats. On the other
side of the aisle, they can appeal to some Republican sentiments if the
controversy is painted as using the Big Stick of government to swat unwashed
college students who steal private property from big business.

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>> Maybe MS and Adobe etc should
>> get together and get some taxes on DVD-Rs to be shared out?
>
>  No thanks! The point of my rant is that these unfair privileges should
> be *removed* from those industries, not to extend the same unfair taxing
> privileges to everyone.

Oh it sounded like you were arguing *for* some extra privileges for the 
software industry (being a software developer yourself IIRC).

BTW why is it unfair?  Governments are obviously open to industry groups 
requesting special treatment, especially when large amounts of money are 
involved, so why is it unfair to any particular group?

The software industry generates far more income than the music one, so I 
would imagine they would have quite a good bargaining position with 
governments on lots of subjects.  It's not unfair just because they have 
been ignorant of this fact so far.

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And lo on Tue, 01 Apr 2008 15:10:36 +0100, Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> did  
spake, saying:

> Chambers <ben### [at] pacificwebguycom> wrote:
>> Democracy is a lousy system.  The only thing going for it, is that it's
>> better than anything else we've tried.
>
>> (Sorry, can't remember who originally said that).

Churchill

>   Someone has also said that democracy is a dictatorship of the majority.

Hmm Marx mentioned a dictatorship of the proletariat, but only as a  
transitional period between capitalism and communismm otherwise I don't  
know who said that.

>   IMO he's wrong. In practice democracy really is a dictatorship of a
> minority. It just fools citizens to believe that it isn't.

"In politics, an organized minority is a political majority"

-- 
Phil Cook

--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com

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