Comments on: The Copyright Thing http://nslog.com/2003/01/14/the_copyright_thing The Weblog of Erik J. Barzeski Tue, 06 Jan 2009 21:25:38 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.7 hourly 1 By: Erik J. Barzeski http://nslog.com/2003/01/14/the_copyright_thing#comment-200 Erik J. Barzeski Wed, 15 Jan 2003 19:18:18 +0000 http://nslog.com/2003/01/14/the_copyright_thing/#comment-200 Aaron: get to college and take an economics class. Quite simply put: it don't work that way. Sorry. Aaron: get to college and take an economics class. Quite simply put: it don't work that way. Sorry.

]]> By: Aaron Swartz http://nslog.com/2003/01/14/the_copyright_thing#comment-199 Aaron Swartz Wed, 15 Jan 2003 18:46:56 +0000 http://nslog.com/2003/01/14/the_copyright_thing/#comment-199 If someone is going to make $10M from selling a book and he puts it into the public domain instead, then the public saves $10M. I thought this was obvious. Copyrigt doesn't make money out of thin air. Like taxes, it takes it from people like you and I. If someone is going to make $10M from selling a book and he puts it into the public domain instead, then the public saves $10M. I thought this was obvious.

Copyrigt doesn't make money out of thin air. Like taxes, it takes it from people like you and I.

]]> By: Erik J. Barzeski http://nslog.com/2003/01/14/the_copyright_thing#comment-198 Erik J. Barzeski Wed, 15 Jan 2003 14:34:59 +0000 http://nslog.com/2003/01/14/the_copyright_thing/#comment-198 Aaron, my argument has nothing to do with someone knowing how better to spend the money. If someone makes another $10M off a book, hell, I'd say he's already contributed more to society through taxes (sales, income, property, etc.) than the public domain would benefit from having the book. You can not measure how much the public domain "benefits" from something in a dollar value, so I'm inclined to place the "value" of such an act at $0. You're offering up a weak argument that the author should do it "for the good of it" and that argument holds no water, because there's no way to measure either when the costs have been recovered or how much the "public" would benefit. Aaron, my argument has nothing to do with someone knowing how better to spend the money.

If someone makes another $10M off a book, hell, I'd say he's already contributed more to society through taxes (sales, income, property, etc.) than the public domain would benefit from having the book.

You can not measure how much the public domain "benefits" from something in a dollar value, so I'm inclined to place the "value" of such an act at $0. You're offering up a weak argument that the author should do it "for the good of it" and that argument holds no water, because there's no way to measure either when the costs have been recovered or how much the "public" would benefit.

]]> By: Aaron Swartz http://nslog.com/2003/01/14/the_copyright_thing#comment-197 Aaron Swartz Wed, 15 Jan 2003 07:36:20 +0000 http://nslog.com/2003/01/14/the_copyright_thing/#comment-197 The public domain has nothing to do with the bogusness of the argument -- you're saying that we should give someone more money because they know how to spend it better than we do. I don't think people would like that plan very much, mostly because if they did they'd ask that person what to do with the money and do it themselves. If someone would have made $5000 by not putting a book in the public domain, then the public will get $5000 if they would. The math isn't difficult. The public domain has nothing to do with the bogusness of the argument -- you're saying that we should give someone more money because they know how to spend it better than we do. I don't think people would like that plan very much, mostly because if they did they'd ask that person what to do with the money and do it themselves.

If someone would have made $5000 by not putting a book in the public domain, then the public will get $5000 if they would. The math isn't difficult.

]]> By: Erik J. Barzeski http://nslog.com/2003/01/14/the_copyright_thing#comment-196 Erik J. Barzeski Wed, 15 Jan 2003 06:21:30 +0000 http://nslog.com/2003/01/14/the_copyright_thing/#comment-196 The $10M thing may be bogus, but again, he may only contribute $5,000, but that $5,000 might better help "society" than releasing some spy novel to the public domain. Guilt tripping people who have amde a career of something into giving things up to the public domain has got to have more behind it than "because you should." Your Windows argument is irrelevant, I think. I never claimed Windows should be in the public domain - we are talking about books. How much does a book released to the public domain really benefit the public? Enough to justify giving up potentially, say, 50 years of royalty checks or the rights to a movie version? I don't think so. The $10M thing may be bogus, but again, he may only contribute $5,000, but that $5,000 might better help "society" than releasing some spy novel to the public domain.

Guilt tripping people who have amde a career of something into giving things up to the public domain has got to have more behind it than "because you should."

Your Windows argument is irrelevant, I think. I never claimed Windows should be in the public domain - we are talking about books. How much does a book released to the public domain really benefit the public? Enough to justify giving up potentially, say, 50 years of royalty checks or the rights to a movie version? I don't think so.

]]> By: Aaron Swartz http://nslog.com/2003/01/14/the_copyright_thing#comment-195 Aaron Swartz Wed, 15 Jan 2003 06:01:01 +0000 http://nslog.com/2003/01/14/the_copyright_thing/#comment-195 "Who can accurately say when I've recovered the cost of writing that book (or my next one)?" You. The point is to depend on the author's honesty to not charge the public an unfair price for the work. (The current price (all the money I can get) seems unfair to me.) The $10M argument is bogus. Should we all use Windows because giving Gates our money allows him to feed starving Africans, but if we spread it across competing operating systems no one would be able to do such things? Should all the car companies charge exorbinant prices so they have more money to spend on protecting the environment? We do have some things like this: taxes. But people always seem to be claiming that there are too much of those and they're collected by our elected officials! Why do you think a system where anyone who writes a book we want to read can tax us is any better? "Who can accurately say when I've recovered the cost of writing that book (or my next one)?"

You. The point is to depend on the author's honesty to not charge the public an unfair price for the work. (The current price (all the money I can get) seems unfair to me.)

The $10M argument is bogus. Should we all use Windows because giving Gates our money allows him to feed starving Africans, but if we spread it across competing operating systems no one would be able to do such things? Should all the car companies charge exorbinant prices so they have more money to spend on protecting the environment?

We do have some things like this: taxes. But people always seem to be claiming that there are too much of those and they're collected by our elected officials! Why do you think a system where anyone who writes a book we want to read can tax us is any better?

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