You still believe your fans are a vicious mob out to get you

Yeah, that’s why I am engaged in a campiagn to get the RIAA of their asses by lifting them out of the scope of copyright.

Crosbie, I don’t think you’re a crazy cult leader, I think your a libertarian who enjoys grandstanding.

I am not forbidding you, nor am I leading an army to overthrow you. I am helping you understand that the labels are not your parents who love and feed you, but vampires who suck virtually all the creative juice from you with nothing in return except the hunger to continue, to win that rare prize of their favour if you do well. And by day they harvest the revenue from the cattle they consider your fans to be.

You’re still in thrall to your Nosferatu, and have been persuaded by him that I’m leading a mob of pitchfork wielding peasants to take you from his care to throw you in an oubliette to starve.

Bit of a nightmare there isn’t it?

You still believe your fans are a vicious mob out to get you rather than an audience of admirers trying to rescue you.

The paradigm shift between those perspectives is scary – from either side. From your perspective I am a crazy cult leader trying to brainwash you and steal you away into slavery. From my perspective I’m trying to help you deprogram yourself from the cult that you surrender your earnings to, that you fight for despite the litigious persecution it engages in against your fans.

It seems you’ve already an inkling that perhaps it’s not all rosy where you are, that perhaps the fans might be safe to talk to.

Small steps…

Well, Billy, concepts of natural rights, liberty, and the free market have been around a tad longer than Marxism.

Yes, but isn’t it funny that you both believed that your ultimate victory was inevitable.

You’re looking at three possible futures:

1) The monopolies of copyright and patent, extended and enforced through ever more draconian measures.
2) A communist, centrally planned resourcing of music and other art, from taxation.
3) A free market: artists and their fans exchanging their art and money of their own free will.

It is a refusal to consider and explore the last option that encourages the others. And bear in mind that no publisher will do so as it necessarily disintermediates them.

It’s going to happen with or without you, but it’d be faster with.

This is what the Marxists used to tell me. Funny, I don’t hear from them anymore.

Not the disavowed bandwidth throttling, of course, the limitation of copyright to only cover commercial use.

I don’t expect anybody here to support any kind of three strikes sanctions. That’s not the compromise we are seeking. We want support for a policy that would move file-sharers out of the range of three strikes type sanctions – the limitation of copyright to only cover commercial use, as expressed in the slogan ‘where money is made, artists must get paid’.

When people then see that copyright is redundant as well as ineffective and unethical, then they might realise how stupid and cruel it was to keep on punishing people for engaging in cultural exchange.

a2f2a is all about this opportunity YOU have, through your willingness to be enlightened by the writing that p2pnet has been exhibiting on its wall for several years.

This is not the opportunity to join forces to bring the labels under control, or to inveigle support from file-sharers in order to win concessions. This is the opportunity to disintermediate the labels. The fans are ready and waiting. All we need are the artists.

It’s going to happen with or without you, but it’d be faster with.

Before it can happen, you have to understand. And that understanding isn’t going to happen overnight, but that’s fine, these paradigm shifts take time.

As you know from our discussions elsewhere, Dredd, the vote in favour of bandwidth throttling was not done under auspices of the FAC. When we come to give evidence to the Digital Britain Committee, the FAC will be arguing in favour of making file sharing legal by reforming the copyright law to only cover commercial use. That is what we are prepared to do in support of the p2p community.

Nice. Do that thing, very useful step along the road and I think that the Pirate contigent will be very happy to support that initiative. Certainly I will personally support and speak in favour of Billy’s proposal.

Not the disavowed bandwidth throttling, of course, the limitation of copyright to only cover commercial use.

Artists are going to have to relinquish copyright and ignore the copyright of others. Sooner or later.

Oh, I see – it’s inevitable! Well, that’s handy for you, isn’t it? You don’t have to do anything, just wait till everyone else sees the wisdom of your argument.

Meanwhile, the Big 4 persecute more and more individuals for file-sharing. Do you have anything to offer them other than rhetoric?

Artists are going to have to relinquish copyright and ignore the copyright of others. Sooner or later. File sharers are simply the pioneers (unlucky martyrs among them).

All published art belongs to the people. It is only their credulity in copyright that paralyses them from taking possession. As soon as a groundswell of artists say “Ok everyone. That’s it. We relinquish copyright. Published culture now belongs to the people.” then the people will accept that as final and complete permission. Copyright will then be a means of corporation tormenting corporation, until the corporations also see its futility.

However, prior to that, as you suggest, artists need to see that they can be paid by their audiences directly, without going via labels, without the threat of copyright, without a tax.