What the Lib Dem web blocking amendment shows: we need more members, from every walk of life

Until you've sorted out the difference between a right (like privacy) and a privilege (like copyright), you're not going to resolve the inherent contradictions in your pursuit of 'digital rights' that conflate the two - you cannot both enforce copyright and preserve people's cultural liberty.

If you support publishing corporations' exploitation of copyright then you must support the Digital Economy Bill. If you support the individual's natural right to share and build upon published works then you must be against the Bill.

It's a nice idea to be able to support both sides, but it cannot be done.

The unnatural privilege of copyright suspends the individual's natural right to copy.

Until you recognise that copyright is not a right, you will remain incoherently supporting copyright at the same time as its opposite, the individual's natural right to copy.

It would be like attempting to simultaneously support geocentricity and heliocentricity.

@K Arthur:

We're pathetic? Unfortunately for you, you're the pathetic one.

"I'd like to see your point of view if it was you who produced a film or wrote a book in the course of your work (your way of life, how you get paid)"

What makes you believe that there aren't any creators amongst us? You have no idea what you're talking about but you start spouting nonsense. For example, I'm a software developer and all my work is open source because I realized that trying to sell infinite goods is insanity. When you can copy something at 0 cost, then why bother enforcing artificial restrictions when you can use your time and figure out how you could monetize the infinite goods using some ancillary finite goods?

"little slimy leeches like the operators of the Pirate Bay/Oink/etc made a crapload of money in ad revenue/subscription fees for enabling the piracy of your work, giving you nothing in return"

Do you have any proof to support that? All the money they gathered was used in the operation of the sites but I guess it's too much to ask of you to understand that.

"The majority of your spotty live-in-parents-basement members should get out more, get a girlfriend, just get out and please join the real world where people need to get paid for their work. I hope you're not ever actually taken seriously at the government level, your counter-arguments are too poor to be taken seriously."

This is such a classic manipulation technique that it's not even laugh-worthy. You think that if you attack our persons we'll be distracted from the core of the matter? That works well when you deal with people doing blue-collar jobs and watching reality-TV, but here you just come out as bringing a knife to a nuke fight. The attempt is truly pitiful.

First, in the real work people have to make sure they get paid for their work by choosing a line of work that doesn't hinge on a government granted monopoly (copyright). You can be sure that great artists and creators will have a big enough following even without copyrights (Can you spell "Nine Inch Nails" or "Radiohead"?). All the copyright noise is created by second-rate creators, one-hit wonders and the like, who think that if they created one great song they have to kick back their entire life without lifting a finger and live off their long-gone success. Unfortunately, that's not how the world works and it's you who should stop living in your fantasy world.

Also, the role of copyrights, as it was originally intended when copyrights were created, is to stimulate the creation of new artistic creations, not to guarantee a steady income for the creators. This is what you (and the likes of you) don't understand.

You say that our arguments are too poor to be taken seriously but I ask you: have you actually thought about our arguments for more that 2 seconds? From what you have written, I can only surmise that you haven't.

Of all the arguments in defence of copyright maximalism, the one that baffles me the most is the one expounder by Mr Arthur above. There is this remarkably short-sighted idea that only those who profit from copyright industries have the right to make any arguments.

This fails to recognise two very important facts. First, the vast majority of people are engaged in creative processes, be it taking photographs, writing poems, writing a blog, etc. Only because some people are lucky enough to get rewarded for their creations does not de-legitimise everyone else. Second, as consumers who line the pockets of those who do make a living of their creations, we also have a right to voice our opinions.

By the way, many of us make a living from our creations, but in some instances the business models followed are less obvious than the straightforward royalty-based Pareto model favoured by most content industries.

@ K Arthur

You do realize that there are content creators supporting ORG that actually make a living out of their creative work?

There are also people versed in EU and UK copyright law as well as long time professionals in many fields.

As for your concern regarding their sentimental life you will be relieved to know that many of ORG supporters are married, I personally have been working in industries that rely on copyright for more than 20 years.

Thank you for your concern tough, it is always enlightening to interchange ideas with somebody like you.

From: Jim Killock
To: Open Rights Group discussion list

Someone from a 'rights holding background' has made a rather unpleasant remark here:

http://www.openrightsgroup.org/blog/2010/what-the-lib-dem-web-blocking-amendment-shows

Be great to have some counter comments from real ORG supporters ...

Jim Killock

@Steve

Forget illegality or legalities for a moment, I'm struggling with the Economics of these arguments & whether it will in fact help the burgeoning & established artists in this field with more money?

There is an economic slump at the moment which may go into a double dip scenario, where is all the extra money coming from to implement these schemes the ISP's, Media companies, Customers or Artists or all Four.

Given the extra financial burdens will this enable Consumers to buy more or maybe even less of the Media Companies Products?

I agree with Steve. A trolling war is counter-productive, for both sides.

K Arthur is angry because he (she?) feels that there is a horde of people seeking to destroy his reality. He's not a cartoon villain, and his concerns are understandable (if poorly founded).

Let's get ourselves off our high horses and start offering these people workable alternatives. Otherwise we'll soon just be an angry footnote.

ORG should be in the business, as Jim suggests above, of protecting our human rights from mistakes like the Digital Economy Bill. I support ORG and I support the existence of copyright, but I do not support what is being done in copyright's name.

Steve, you say "The problem is ORG has never to my knowledge made a case for creators digital rights".

I'd agree with you. When I joined the ORG discussion list I also assumed ORG would be interested in establishing an individual's rights, especially with respect to the creation of intellectual works. Alas, ORG appears not so much concerned with the rights of the individual, as how UK law affects and is applied to the Internet.

It's unfortunate if you find my comments as 'mean' or my views as 'repellent'. I'm very much focussed on the rights of the individual and the means by which they can earn money from their artistic and other intellectual labours on the Internet, without having to rely upon the anachronistic 18th century privilege of a now ineffective reproduction monopoly.

We've had copyright for such a long time that it's proponent's use of 'right' as a contraction of 'legally granted right' has conflated and corrupted the original 18th century meaning of right as a natural right.

The following excerpt from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rights_of_Man">Wikipedia's page</a> on Thomas Paine's <em>Rights of Man</em> seems to put the difference between 'right' and right most succinctly:

<blockquote>Human rights originate in Nature, thus, rights cannot be granted via political charter, because that implies that rights are legally revocable, hence, would be privileges:
<em>It is a perversion of terms to say that a charter gives rights. It operates by a contrary effect — that of taking rights away. Rights are inherently in all the inhabitants; but charters, by annulling those rights, in the majority, leave the right, by exclusion, in the hands of a few . . . They . . . consequently are instruments of injustice.</em>
<em>The fact, therefore, must be that the individuals, themselves, each, in his own personal and sovereign right, entered into a compact with each other to produce a government: and this is the only mode in which governments have a right to arise, and the only principle on which they have a right to exist.</em></blockquote>