[LAU] ASCAP Assails Free-Culture, Digital-Rights Groups

[Patrick Shirkey]

On 07/01/2010 11:48 PM, Paul Davis wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 1, 2010 at 9:37 AM, nepal<nepal.roade at mypostoffice.co.uk>  wrote:
>    
>> In all this discussion, the system cannot be fixed because it is not
>> broken. It is psychotic at its most fundamental level! Money is the
>> manifestation of the problem. It is an attempt to accumulate energy
>> (everything at its simple level reduces to Energy), when it is in
>> Energy's nature to FLOW and do its work.
>>      
> i take it that you have some alternative account for how a creative
> individual can ensure that s/he doesn't die of starvation if they
> attempt to pursue their creative work as a full time effort? or do you
> believe that such an effort is misguided, and that one can only be
> creative "on the side", while doing something that provides for the
> basic needs of shelter, heat, food etc?
>
>    


The system that ASCAP is promoting for is only viable in a debt based 
economy. They want to ensure that people who claim ownership of the 
artwork can get a cut of the money that is earnt from using the 
art/product for financial gain after the money earned has been counted. 
In this case I think it would be more appropriate for them to campaign 
for laws that require up front payments by the industry for work that is 
intended to be used for financial gain. It would give it's members a 
better chance of seeing some of the cash they feel they deserve and 
force the industry to be clear about how much money they intend to earn 
and are willing to part with for that opportunity. It would also move 
them away from supporting and contributing to a debt based economy which 
only serves the goals of the elite.

Trying to stop people from copying and sharing digital creations is 
equivalent to trying to stop people from sharing air. It's a fools game 
and is counterproductive to the fundamental way in which humans interact 
and live on a daily basis. From the day we are born we are encouraged to 
mimic and copy, in order to learn and grow.  What ASCAP is asking for is 
for us to stop doing what we are fundamentally programmed from birth to 
do in order to survive and contribute productively to society. Asking us 
to give them a cut for the priviledge of sharing one of their members 
work is nearly impossible to police. There are better things they could 
focus on than trying to force people to pay for something that is 
already a foregone conclusion.

Build better methods of distributing music that gives people the 
opportunity to pay up front. Take your chances that you can convince 
enough people to use it to make it a profitable business. Don't expect 
us to stop copying and sharing if we have the tools to make it possible 
just because you are not happy with the loss of income.

"It's my air mummy and those guys over there are breathing it. 
Mummmmmmmmy make them stop!!!! Mummmmmmmmmmy!!!!"


> i don't see my interaction with money as an attempt to accumulate
> anything at all. i subscribe to the timothy leary hydrodynamic theory
> of money, actually, in which there's enough flowing in the "stream"
> for us all to dip in our cups and get what we need as long as no
> psychotic idiot decides to build a dam.

In this case I feel ASCAP is trying to build a dam to stop humans from 
interacting and communicating. If ASCAP gets what it is campaigning for 
the next step is to launch a worldwide campaign to force us all to stop 
sharing digital information that falls under their custodianship. It 
will be easy for more sinister methods of control to be implemented 
using ASCAP as a supporting argument for the goals of the industrial 
lobbyists.


> when i was younger, i saw
> money as the root of almost all evil. these days, my understanding has
> changed: those of us who live outside the equatorial zones on this
> planet don't live in a world in which our survival needs are simply
> met. ignoring any higher goals related to art, science, spirituality
> etc, work is required to ensure that we survive the winters, and that
> we have food for the whole year. somebody has to do this work, and
> someone will benefit. who these two parties are, and how they relate
> to each other, determines the structure of the societies in which we
> live. as much as my teenage kids would like to believe otherwise,
> there aren't any shortcuts around this: our world doesn't give us a
> free pass to life.
>
> so, the question remains: is it a desirable goal for a creative person
> to make a living by pursuing their creativity full time? If so, how
> will they be renumerated for their work, and what role does preventing
> others from using their work in ways that reduce that renumeration
> play in making it all possible?
>    


Artistic creativity is a luxury for societies that have an excess of 
resources. Should a society that allows for this luxury to fund the 
daily living expenses of a select few while exploiting the resources of 
millions of others in order to sustain a fundamentally imbalanced system 
that gives a heriditary elite an almost unbreakable upperhand and 
advantage from the day they are born be allowed to exist at all?

We reap what we sow and ASCAP is sowing loss of freedom and control of 
resources by a select few. Not cool. Very not cool...

-- 
Patrick Shirkey
Boost Hardware Ltd