[Keeping It Gimple]

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

right-- that was the post-facto claim that brecht made for his play. that the system made altruism impossible. hence i recommended it-- i didn't say "go read ayn rand". but that's where we are. so we can't go around forcing altruism out of people who haven't chosen it for themselves. "i'm taking your wallet-- altruism, dude"

but it's not capitalism proper that creates that-- it's our desires that generate scarcity. we always want more than there is available. hence, "not enough to go around." ever. under any system. scarcity is the basic fact of economics.

capitalism is just a modern system to manage that scarcity. wanting more for less however is fucking ancient. it has always been.

actually dude, file sharing is not the same as wallet snatching... unless i had a star trek replicator that could replicate your wallet then give the original back to you, which is what file sharing is.

and then you're back to some want/need dichotomy which is a dead end if ever there was one.

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by Keeping It Gimple

actually dude, file sharing is not the same as wallet snatching... unless i had a star trek replicator that could replicate your wallet then give the original back to you, which is what file sharing is.

and then you're back to some want/need dichotomy which is a dead end if ever there was one.

well no, sorry. you're rationalizing thievery, see. which is fine if that's what you want. i am a thief, yes, but i know i am one and don't delude myself with sophistries.

it is very simple. products exist in a market. there is supply and there is demand. the equilibrium of both determines the price. the higher the demand or lower the supply, the higher the price. the lower the demand or higher the supply, the lower the price. simple.

when supply approaches infinite, demand is satisfied with little effort and the price approaches zero.

so, when you make infinite replications of a product, you take the seller's wallet. you render her product basically worthless. she loses her ability to make an income. seller has no more incentive to sell, or seller has to hire a bunch of cops to prevent you from doing that, or they have to change their model to make your replication moot--

e.g., i'd rather pay spotify $10 a month than deal with the headache of torrents and organization and labeling and all that shit. so for me streaming makes file sharing moot.

of course, someone is going to get fucked in the process, and get less money, etc-- that someone is always the artist.

and of course the market is always going to exist. it will not cease. and it will adapt to disruptions. let's just be honest with ourselves and call those disruptions what they are-- looting. and so the market adapts to our looting.

my name is !@#$%! and i'm a natural-born looter.

there. it wasn't that hard.

[Keeping It Gimple]

so i guess when i get a lift from a friend to go into town for free, rather than pay a taxi, im stealing from the taxi driver yeah?

when i invent writing in ancient greece, im stealing from the orators?

when i obsolesce a market system with something free and more efficient, im somehow still a "looter" rather than a "liberator".

[Keeping It Gimple]

also btw your latest post has just brought you exactly back to where we started and given your tendency to do this and spiral off into "i cant be wrong because heres my argument repeated until you give up" loops im gonna check out if you repeat it again

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by Keeping It Gimple

also btw your latest post has just brought you exactly back to where we started and given your tendency to do this and spiral off into "i cant be wrong because heres my argument repeated until you give up" loops im gonna check out if you repeat it again

don't worry about it. let's fire up our torrents and go gangrape some copyrights.

they're asking for it!

[gmku]

I wish I knew more about newer jazz releases.

[Keeping It Gimple]

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

don't worry about it. let's fire up our torrents and go gangrape some copyrights.

they're asking for it!

i torrented your genome and people are cloning you and doing all kinds of unspeakable shit

[Rob Instigator]

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

but you realize that the fully artificial wasteful self-gratifying model is actually possible because they are the only ones who can enforce the right of artists with some measure of success, yes?

because the artist alone is naked in the world. and so they must pay "protection" to a media racket by selling their rights to them.

because as little as they get, a little is more than the nothing they would get from the oh-so-generous (yeah right) public.

in other words, if we were a less cunning and thieving predatory exploitative species we'd all pay the artists directly and need no lawyers. we'd all be writing checks to cat power-- "thanks for those great moments! here's $1,000!". but as it is, artists need lawyers if they want to eat, and we can blame the lawyers all we want but that's just not being honest with ourselves.

our society devalues art, treating it solely as a sell-able commodity. There has to be a good middle ground somewhere

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by Keeping It Gimple

i torrented your genome and people are cloning you and doing all kinds of unspeakable shit

eh! i'm doing all kinds of unspeakable shit to it already as i write this.

--

on a different subject-- and a more interesting one-- has a genome been legally defined as someone's property yet? if so-- who, if any, has the copyright?

[Rob Instigator]

copyright has never ever ever had anything to do with the creators or art/music/literature, and everything to do with the business interests of those that make $$ off exploiting artists/musicians/writers.

No artists anywhere pay millions to lobbyists to "persuade" politicians to extend copyright law. It is the companies that own the rights that do so. the song Happy Birthday is still copyrighted, even though it is ancient as all fuck, and near universal, and no one can use it in a film or tv show without paying a faceless conglomerate (probably EMI who own nearly 80% of all music rights) over $100,000! whoever wrote the ditty (Irving Berlin?) has been dead for decades and is not benefiting from it.

[Rob Instigator]

genomes have been copyrighted already. Dolly the sheep was copyrighted.

[evollove]

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

on a different subject-- and a more interesting one-- has a genome been legally defined as someone's property yet? if so-- who, if any, has the copyright?

Don't have time to read. Please summarize:

http://www.genome.gov/19016590

[Rob Instigator]

Indeed, one of the early principles agreed upon by leaders of the Human Genome Project was that the DNA sequence generated should be freely available to the public. This principle was codified in the 1997 Bermuda Principles, which set forth the expectation that all DNA sequence information should be released into publicly available databases within 24 hours of being generated. This policy of open access to the genome has been a core ethos of genomics ever since.

Over the years that this debate has occurred, there have been concerns that large numbers of patents associated with the human genome would limit the integration of genomic medicine into health care because of either restrictive patents or prohibitive costs. Diagnostic tests on patented genes cannot be invented around, as is possible with other patents. This is because the actual DNA sequence to be tested is claimed in the patent, not the method of analyzing the gene to determine its sequence, and so only the patent holder, or their licensees, have the rights to sequence that DNA during the patent's life.

[Keeping It Gimple]

some of the genomic copyrights have beennnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn overturned by courts

keyboard lol

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by Rob Instigator

our society devalues art, treating it solely as a sell-able commodity. There has to be a good middle ground somewhere

used to be artists had to gain the patronage of rich and powerful people in order to do their work. leonardo moved from italy to france for that reason.

art is treated as a commodity because our economy works that way. artists need to eat just like everyone who works. and because we are in a market economy, artists need the market.

the thing is--- the existence of the market is predicated on rules. without those rules, there is no market.

Originally Posted by Rob Instigator

copyright has never ever ever had anything to do with the creators or art/music/literature, and everything to do with the business interests of those that make $$ off exploiting artists/musicians/writers.

No artists anywhere pay millions to lobbyists to "persuade" politicians to extend copyright law. It is the companies that own the rights that do so. the song Happy Birthday is still copyrighted, even though it is ancient as all fuck, and near universal, and no one can use it in a film or tv show without paying a faceless conglomerate (probably EMI who own nearly 80% of all music rights) over $100,000! whoever wrote the ditty (Irving Berlin?) has been dead for decades and is not benefiting from it.

i was gonna say "sure", but now that i think about it, ASCAP is actually member-owned by artists and publishers and fights for copyright protection ina a big asshole way.

so i looked it up

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americ...d_Publish ers

so, see, it's more complicated

[Keeping It Gimple]

also ever think that art is mostly useless luxurious crap and its not as important as actual useful shit and so people who make it then whine about not being able to profit bigtime are douchecandles?

[Keeping It Gimple]

and art is also a commodity valorized because it allows the wealthy to store wealth in sellable assets.

it doesnt bring meaning or value to life or any of that other shit

[Rob Instigator]

Originally Posted by !@#$%

i was gonna say "sure", but now that i think about it, ASCAP is actually member-owned by artists and publishers and fights for copyright protection ina a big asshole way.

so i looked it up

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Society_of_Composers,_Authors_and_Publish ers

so, see, it's more complicated

copyright is very complicated, and they make it so on purpose. any artwork, at the instant of creation, is copyrighted in the USA. I have done research on this when I was drawing a daily comic strip.

[Rob Instigator]

Originally Posted by Keeping It Gimple

also ever think that art is mostly useless luxurious crap and its not as important as actual useful shit and so people who make it then whine about not being able to profit bigtime are douchecandles?

Nope. people work hard and earn money for much much more than just attaining the basic needs of living (food, shelter, clothing etc). In nearly every respect, people work hard so they can earn money to enjoy the arts! That can be TV shows, dramas on stage, handmade pottery for your home, music at home, concerts, dance, books, leisure time to read. etc. Art, in all it's facets, is the only reason for living.

if you value a drawing made for you by a child or a friend, you are not valuing "mostly useless luxurious crap"

Only idiots who buy art because of what others say is valuable do that, and they deserve all the scorn you can heap on them.

[Rob Instigator]

art is one of the only things that brings value to a life.