There's an exceptionally strong argument for a simple access fee or tax (built into broadband service provision or income tax, preferably scaled to wealth), for which you have all-you-can-eat access to content, with authors paid based on a pro-rated basis of usage of their works, based on some cost-of-production scale (algorithmic computer-generated music really shouldn't be rewarded on the same basis as high-calibre investigative journalism or technical research). Possibly even taking the concept of payment for work out of the equation and providing some number of professional slots rewarded on a sliding scale based on measures of talent or quality. After all, what matters in producing considerable content is occupational stability in doing so. Periodic (annual? More or less frequent?) assessments could be made to compensation, number of openings, etc. Yes, it's complex, but then, information goods are too.

Oh, and that argument's compelling enough for Amazon to consider it. Don't buy their DRM'd crap myself, but those I know are being offered $10/mo all-you-can-eat access. O'Reilly's Safari service has had a similar offering for years (though at a different price-point as I recall).

Seems a good idea whose time may well come.

https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/3p0bp6/richard...

Respect for the law because is a rot that must be removed from society. Respecting a law just because it exists is to shackle our morals and common sense to what those in charge of the law dictate.

>There are causes that merit civil disobedience, but this isn't one of them.

The notion of civil disobedience, especially that of 'to do it, you must break the law and willingly submit yourself to punishment' is another rot. As for actual disobedience, the privatization of our collective culture to an extent that far surpasses rewarding primary contributors is a cause for general disobedience.

Also to note, your paying for movie ticket actually has no end effect because at the end of the day ever movie is a financial disaster. At least for mainstream Hollywood.

You assume all pirating is for entertainment. In a civilized society - should the poor not have access to expensive research papers, books, and the right to self-education through these materials? Are those things that are reserved only for those who can afford it? Is that really a civilized society? One that ignores the poor in an every-increasing demand for individual wealth rather than communal wealth?

There is a coffee shop where I live where you can "purchase" a coffee. The payment is whatever you feel the coffee is worth. Most people will pay $4-6 like any other coffee shop. Some people will feel generous or can afford to pay more. It's popular among the homeless and poor, because they can enjoy coffee and if they can only afford to give $0.50 they give $0.50, if they can't afford giving anything - the coffee is free.

I think that's more civilized than denying the poor the ability to enjoy coffee simply because they aren't in a position to pay for it. I argue this would only fail in uncivilized places where everyone is abusive of the generosity and the affluent and wealthy are not generous with their wealth causing the coffee shop to quickly go out of business.

But this depends on how "civilized" is to be defined.

Why?

The law exists, among other reasons, to save us the N! negotiation of appropriate barriers. In that way, taking some aliquot of entertainment is not different from sleeping on your porch. Or in your living room.

Slavish adherence to the law regardless of its nuance is not noble, it does not contribute to some greater whole, it is mere obedience, nothing more.

"Speed Limit 65" on major highways is a law too, and one that has roughly as much respect among the people as copyright law. And we're a more efficient society for ignoring it.

Actually walking out of a store with a physical copy of a book (or a CD or a movie) is something most people would agree is theft, but making a digital copy of the same book or CD or movie without paying for it is... something else. By this point anyone on HN can enumerate the salient differences, which all revolve around digital copies having zero marginal cost.

The problem is that we too often ignore the salient similarities. The reason you want this particular book or CD or movie has nothing to do with the marginal cost of that particular copy. The bulk of the value always lay in the creative work; in digital media, all of the value lies in the creative work. If I want to sell you a novel and you don't like the price I've set, you'd never think that justifies walking out of the store without paying for a physical copy. Why does it justify you making a digital copy without paying for it?

DRM is a terrible "solution" to this problem, but I think its worst feature may be that its existence obscures the actual value of creative works by focusing attention back on the medium. My hypothetical novel's value, or lack thereof, ultimately has nothing to do with whether it's a trade paperback or an EPUB file. The principle of "you give me money in exchange for my work" remains the same even if my work is not fixed in a physical, tangible form.

If we're talking about justification rather than law, the question can easily be turned around to become "What gives you the right to prevent me from making a digital copy?" Because you made the thing? More likely than not, I'll pay you if your work is any good.

Content producers seem to want to make the jump from physical to digital to gain its benefits without their customers realizing those same benefits, such as the ability to try before buying, or format shifting, etc. They treat this relationship as inherently adversarial in nature, and that's even before DRM gets added to the mix.

If your work is good, I will pay you. You lost the ability to control whether that happens before or after I've sampled the work, and you can thank decades of bad business practices for the justification for that.

Willfully choosing to ignore the speed limit has no impact on the rest of the law - that law is ignored because it is widely seen to be broken, inefficient, and nothing more than a vehicle for unjust profit.

Coincidentally, the same negative descriptors apply to copyright in 2015.

This is not D&D, we do not have character alignments. I am not giving up some imaginary karma and slighting the deity/concept of Justice and Good Order by choosing to ignore a subset of non-beneficial laws.

The question is - how can you fight it? If the plebes could get laws made in their interest, they would. But they can't, so some of them do the next best thing - break the law. And I don't see anything wrong with that. Might makes right is the ultimate rule here. If nobody can stop you from doing what you want, then it's OK. That's just how the world works.

http://extent-of-regulation.dhwritings.com/