Re: Paul Krugman holds forth on the future of publishing

From: "Lee Passey"
> Bill Seitz wrote:
>
>> I think you're all mis-understanding the position of the "info 
>> wants
>> to be free" crowd. They're not saying that they think 
>> information
>> *should* be price=0, they're saying that given
>>
.................
>
> I seem to recall reading in the 80's a science fiction author 
> explaining
> why he wrote. He said that for him writing was like a bowel 
> movement. It
> was not necessarily an enjoyable experience, but he couldn't 
> not do it.
>
> The era of copyright is less than 300 years old, and the era of 
> modern
> copyright is less than 150 years old. Making authors adapt to 
> changing
> conditions may make things hard for individual authors who are 
> not
> particularly flexible, but I doubt it will have much impact on 
> society
> as a whole.
>

ROTFLMAO

I had to check my calendar that this is not 2005 - or 1895 come 
to that.   Lee and Jon are old hands at sleight of hand argument 
on this and I see Bill is getting in there with them.

First, all conditions in a society are by compulsion and have 
some elements of  the falsity Jon complains about.

Second, half a quotation is no quotation;  the whole thing (from 
memory) is 'Information wants to be free, Information wants to be 
paid for'.    Funnily enough this is not even a proposition, let 
alone a proven consequence of logical progress.   It is merely a 
summation of someone's observations which, in my opinion (and not 
a humble one) is without merit.

But it is handy as a justification for those who want to steal 
others work.   My comment to them is apply this everywhere.   Go 
into bookshop, pick a book of information crying out for freedom 
and walk out of the shop.   You can explain to the judge how you 
are a freedom fighter....

Were copyright law in the right place, criminal law with other 
property law, then the argument would stay in the castle in the 
air where it belongs.   And thank you Lee for the very handy 
summary of the development of copyright, which has always 
existed.    That is why the owner in England at that time (Queen 
Anne) was  able to change the disposal of it from the printers to 
the rightful possessors, the writers.   That is why one form of 
payment is called 'royalties'.

Copyright law has indeed become internationalised and a global 
village recognition of the continuation of Intellectual Property 
for the expressed idea.   I would imagine Darwinists would be 
very aware that it is those products of the mind that have moved 
civilisation forward since their belief in the development to the 
upright ape.   Others will recognise God's product and consider 
it one to respect in just this way.

Dickens writes of theft from the nineteenth century market stalls 
and shops - perhaps the thieves would claim food wants to be 
free.

Oh - in case it has not struck the minds of those proponents of 
this - the saying might mean either that it doesn't desire to be 
paid for OR that it calls to those disseminators of information 
(writers!) to get the information out of its prisons to a wider 
public.   The second doesn't suggest the writer is a wage slave 
or that he should do this while starving in the gutter.

And that makes the second part of the saying a little different - 
if you want writers to free that information from its prisons, 
pay for it.

Of course the discussion of 'information' ignores the fact (or 
deliberately tries to cover it) that writing covers a very wide 
area and that other forms of creativity are manifold.

Jon did raise the interesting point about the free market or the 
market.   But that he has not the slightest idea what a market is 
seems not to worry him.   What he suggests is a far less able 
method of producing useable works  than the one writers are 
already subject to.   In that the writer struggles at every point 
to bring the work to a fruitful stage, and some of the greatest 
books have been rejected by fifty or 100 publishers before seeing 
the light of day.

And Jon flew another pigeon - I hardly care to call it a kite - 
in suggesting that writers be paid for writing.   I have asked 
twice now to be told who is going to do the paying - and I can't 
hold my breath much longer.   To this I add how many people can 
claim to be writers under his system, and is this more or less 
than get paid through  the current market?   And will it cost in 
total more or less to...  ...well I don't know who it will cost 
till he tells me.

Joseph Harris [And don't tell me the kite of the saying is not a 
bird;  I know, I like puns and I am being contemptuous and 
dismissive.]



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