Comment by k-mcgrady | Hacker News Reader

Comment by k-mcgrady | Hacker News Reader

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Can't agree with this enough. I think most people believe that there is a need for copyright in some form. In it's current form, especially because of the ridiculous cases of people being sued for millions because they downloaded a few songs, it's just gotten a bad reputation.

The comparisons to open source software never do much to convince me. Many people think that it is a good model and make money through it sure, but I believe commercial software makes more money and that money is easier made (for example money from a sale instead of money from support seems much easier to do and scale).

The digital music space has been improving (iTunes has been DRM free for a while now) and it's hopefully going to get better - probably as more of the old media people retire and the companies enter the control of people who have grown up with digital content. The only way things will move forward is if both sides compromise but the mentality some people have of 'I want it now, I want it in the format I want, and I want it free' doesn't do much to convince music/movie/book companies. It makes them want to lock things down tighter, not open them up.

" Many people think that it is a good model and make money through it sure, but I believe commercial software makes more money and that money is easier made..."

Making money out of it is irrelevant.

Whether or not you can copy a file is a moral question, and this has a higher priority than how to make a business model out of it.

You can't argue about if something is good by checking if you can easily build a business around it.

I will take an extreme example here (just so we get out of the copyright environment): What if I want to make money by kidnapping children? I believe I could make a descent living out of it (especially if I have some kind of law on my side). However this 'business' aspect is never considered, because it doesn't pass the morality check, and thus is irrelevant.

I know it's an extreme example, but this shows there's a hierarchy when we need to determine if something is acceptable. Making money ISN'T among the firsts.

I'm not saying you can't make money without copyrights, but it simply can't be an argument.

I don't think people want it now, in the format they want and free. Sure, when I was younger that seemed reasonable but for a long time I've been happy to pay for it.

Here's the bit distributors haven't figured out yet, I want it now and I'm willing to pay. Hell, I've literally just infringed copyright today because my only legal alternative is to wait 12 months for local release (and I do it every week). There's a missed opportunity.

No one has ever been sued for downloading a few songs. The suits have purposefully been against people who have distributed via uploading, either willingly or not (e.g. Kazza) hundreds or thousands of songs.

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