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

[Paul Davis]

On Thu, Jul 15, 2010 at 6:25 PM, drew Roberts <zotz at 100jamz.com> wrote:
> On Thursday 15 July 2010 14:50:20 you wrote:
>> surely its not that dichotomous. one middle ground:
>>
>> * don't force support against anyone's will
>> * use extreme force against anyone who redistributes (i.e. the creator
>>      is the only legal distributor)
>
> That's the problem right there. You can't even prove damages and yet you
> think "extreme force" will be necessary to get people to comply.

i was being partly tongue in cheek, naturally.

> Seriously, shall we have the death penalty for distributors? What about for
> performers? What about for unintentional performers?
>
> If not the death penalty, what about 4 or 5 years in jail?

IF copyright was restricted to the creator AND limited in duration to
a single-digit number of years AND utterly non-transferable (even to
next-of-kin) AND intent had to proven THEN i'd say that maybe 6 months
or a year in jail, with options for first offenses and/or parole
and/or scope of damages affecting the sentence?

unintentional distribution and/or performance is a hard case that,
like so many other gray areas, would have to be decided by a court.

then of course is the question of what constitutes distribution or
performance, but these questions exist in the current state of affairs
and will always represent some kind of tradeoff. 5 seconds? 2 bars?
chord changes but not melody, or vice versa? 2 lines of lyrics? etc.
etc.