No, a strawman is designed to shift focus away from the issues at hand

Not to be too picky, but you are referring to a diversion. Feel free to look up strawman argument, but typically is means proposing an argument that is counter to the position held, one you expect to be cut down, like a "straw man" in battle.

Based on your response to my clarification on what was the actual theoretical component of "physical ownership" you seemed rather clear that you were not actually proposing ownership as you originally presented. I think that it is clear from your response that we are actually saying the same thing. Ownership, as you were proposing is a manifestation of a set of theoretical concepts called "laws" and a society that can be either complicit with those laws and/or can be compelled via some form of enforcement to obey these laws.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't see anything we need to be discussing regarding this point.

You really see no problem here? Ever heard of the problem of scarcity of art? Scarcity is a major cornerstone of modern economics, and art simply doesn't have it naturally. Without scarcity the only money comes from weak economic aberrations like charity, which while it may work acceptably for a while, it is not at all reliable and not particularly fair (i.e. representative of effort). It's a problem to which we have a solution: copyright. Ignoring the problem won't make it go away. If you wish to replace copyright, you must replace it, not just throw it away, and hope something will step into its place.

No, I really see no problem. As far as I can tell, there are scarce resources (people) creating art in multiple media. Some of those media retain the scarcity of their creations (statues, paintings, carvings, installations, books, performances, feel free to add to this), and others can produce or share the products of their work in media that offers no intrinsic limit on the number of copies that can be produced of the work (digital recordings, software, images, movies, etc.) The different media obey different laws. Physical media obeys physical laws, the "Copying" media does not. In both case there are opportunities to be exploited to profit.

As far as fairness, I must take a rather large amount of offense with your contrived protection of entitlements to these "artists" you seem to be representing. Personally, I get paid for my time, most people do. I see no, absolutely none (mind you I USED to think otherwise), justification as to why somebody who produces something copyable is entitle to anything more than payment for their time. Now, feel free to call me an idiot for not exploiting the copyright system to seek my fortunes, but as I have already said: copyright is a contrivance (sure go ahead say all law is a contrivance, that is sure to lead to a far more insightful discussion), it is not a "natural" law based on ability of the individual. It is a particular business model hard-coded into various government documents. You may say that this is a fair-deal agreement to promote the production of more works that can be copyrighted, I beg to differ. In the end we are not going to agree on this. Your other points about "value of copyright" and "it's the only way that works" and so forth I have heard ad-nauseum. I very much used to believe the same arguments, but they simply do not ring true. As far as the proposition that I, or anyone else, need be compelled to replace copyright with something else we can call copyright is simply not true. It certainly is possible (I'm not saying probable) to simply dissolve copyright. If you'd like to see discussion that is more in-depth on this particular issue you should visit the "Question Copyright" web site. It is often described on that site that whatever new law becomes the "replacement" of copyright would support the notion of sharing so profoundly as to require that the law not be referred to as a copyright law. Also, that is not the only view on moving society to sharing society, but it is a good start. If you wish to debate the merits of the "Question Copyright" site it would be better to do that in their forums rather than with me here. I am not associated with QC, but I have found that site helpful to opening my mind with regard to issues concerning copyright. Of course there are other more traditional discussions on this issue such as Lessig, et. al.

Want to make money in music but don't want to share? Fine don't make recordings. Want write a story and not share, great, don't put it on the Internet. There is absolutely no, none, nada, compulsion to participate in the Internet. Fine, so now you'll say I'm crazy because what about all those CDs that were produced before the Internet came around? "Sucks to be you" seems to me: that was the earlier version of the "copy medium". For a while people made a buck selling copies, now the bottom's dropped out, ok, move on. If what you have in mind is to join the Internet party and ruin it for the rest of us, sorry, you're not welcome. As for musicians a minuscule fraction of them "earned a living" as recording artists, the vast majority earned money the old-fashioned way: they worked gigs. Sure there were many that received tiny checks with some small label recording, but they didn't earn a living on it. As for musicians the Internet is becoming an advertising medium almost exclusively (as their CD sales used to be), to bring people to their gigs, where the real money is. Is there something unfair in all of this? I don't think so. You're clearly going to disagree, but declining CD sales means that medium is over. Even with downlaodables, sure there seems to be some activity, but like Trent Reznor has learned: compelling people to buy copies is a dead end. You either compel the sale of every copy and look like a jerk (not something you want your fans to feel), or you simply accept that not every copy (in fact MOST copies) may never have been a sale in the first place. Mr. Reznor is leading the pack for musicians in this regard, but many are catching on. There are numerous independent musician sites you can go to and simply download their music. The other "artistic products" that people worry about include books/writings, movies, and software. It is almost a certainty that each and every one of these will find ways to make money in the "copying" medium. Sure, you can call this blind faith, I'll accept that, but my confidence is being bolstered as the evidence begins to accumulate.

Copyright is only here because we have yet to find something better.

Copyright is here because various government officials wrote this particular business model into various government foundational documents. In the case of the US, this inclusion was not without significant opposition. Also, the ideas behind copyright were conceived in a time utterly ignorant of anything that could so undermine its relevance. Just because something "was so" doesn't mean it "is so" or "will be so".

Now, copyright is actually damn good, in principle.

Obviously debatable. ;-)

Those copyrights, so long as they are honoured by the community, have value, yet, at the same time, don't cost us anything.

No, granting copyrights do cost something, culturally, socially, economically. There are numerous businesses (Disney as an example) that have become so addicted to exploiting the government-subsidized business model of copyright that it is perverse. Guess this is just what happens when the government gets into the business of stamping monopolies for nothing. Disney is free to exploit the public domain for their ideas, but each time there are threats that the source of money is about to dry up I guess they'll just buy another extension to copyrights.

Copyright, as a system, is actually highly competitive, and can easily be tested side-by-side with any other system.

No, this claim is impossible. Copyright is a monopoly granting system. The claim that it can be tested side-by-site with a system that does not grant monopolies is a self-evident non-starter. The point of getting out of the economic black hole that grants the RIAA/MPAA the undeserved teeth they have to extort monies from ISPs (as indicated by the original post) is to realize that copyright is an utterly unjust donation, by the public, and in the public's name, of monopoly power.

it's your responsibility to come up with a better system.

Really? Well for starters, dissolve the copyright system.

Clearly, this is not what you meant, you'd like me to propose a replacement for copyrights that I can convince you is better. I'm not going to succeed in doing that. You'd rather be forced to pay a tax to ISPs you be collected by the RIAA/MPAA but at the same time not be forced to. I don't know, your position is getting more confusing. You're claiming that illegal file sharing is the cause of all this so the RIAA/MPAA is acting constructively by extorting monies out of each of us to address the issue, as opposed to the obvious choice of not making this "illegal" activity illegal. To do this you seem rather willing to support at least the legal means (copyright) that enables the RIAA/MPAA to pursue this new "business model". I dunno, seems to me that "the people who brought you the DMCA" don't deserve cart blanch to dictate how the way the world works. Seems to me that if you follow the problem back you keep winding up at copyright laws. If there is some value in copyrights they come at a terrible price and I, for one, think that there are other, more constructive, ways of addressing the problem, namely, removing the cause of the problem in the first place and enabling the "copy" medium to prosper in getting information between minds. If you don't like the new reality, fine, don't come and play.

It's the pirates' fault for using the technology illegally, and you have an obligation to obey the law. If you don't like the law, it's not the responsibility of others to notice that and to change it to suit your own desires.

Well, today, people who download files that were not distributed with the intention to be shared are prosecutable for violating copyrights, I do not dispute this. But, yeah, if society wants to change the law to not make this a breach of copyright they can, plain and simple. So, yes, I can make my desires manifest. I'm already trying. The way you go about this is by changing the law. If society wanted to make a law that everyone where pink T-shirts on Wednesdays they could, not that they would, but maybe...

Culture. Without sacrificing some of the internet's capability, we won't have particularly much quality data to use it with.

Smacks of hyperbole. Culture will endure. Call me out on blind faith again if you wish, but, I'm sure a moments reflections will be sufficient to avoid that.

[snark]I see. Equivalently, we probably shouldn't be so attached to the notion of an Internet, because much of human history doesn't involve it?[/snark]

Distraction. Humanity survived without anything like copyright for rather long periods of time, and prospered (although I have no desire to return to any of those times, mostly they were rather brutal, and smelly), the concept is not a necessary one by any stretch. I'm rather fond of the Internet, I would like for it to stay and grow. I believe that the manifest revelation of an important fundamental property already present in our minds, the compulsion to copy, synthesize and spread ideas and information will ultimately be the pillar of a future peaceful and enlightened humanity. One that is smart enough to nurture learning, reason, art, and sustainable economic growth, while culling intrinsically divisive and destructive ideas like "IP", superstition, and religion.

If you wanted me to wax philosophical in response to your non-sequitur, there you go.

Why not? You can share your home, you can divide your estate, you can give charitably until you have the bare essentials for survival. You don't because, let's face it, you don't want to, and that's fair enough. Your true hypocrisy lies in the fact that you want artists to give up their riches, because you classify their riches as IP. Hell, in terms of information, you're not exactly poor. It'd be like distributing your wealth amongst Saudi Arabia, as opposed to the homeless. I see no reason why they should be forced to donate their information charitably to you, or anyone else who has access to the wealth of art and information that is the internet.

Hmmm... It occurs to me that I already said this, to you, in fact. I guess I have to quote myself *blush*:

My possessiveness, begins with the fact that physical objects simply cannot be shared in the same way as non-physical objects can be, and we all need, at least, the basics to survive. Now, since you seem so keen on maintaining an "IP" regime I can assume that you're in favor of the ability to exploit one's skills and opportunities to increase one's material wealth.

Perhaps I was not clear, but I was, in fact agreeing that life is more than mere "bare minimum". We are, in fact, programmed with some degree of self-interest that goes beyond the essentials. So, of course I don't want to, that much should be obvious. As for artists giving up stuff, like riches, no, they are entitled to profit from what they can achieve with their skills in terms of market value, just like me and you. What I absolutely do not see is the justification of providing them a business model for that in the form of a monopoly (i.e. copyright) IF by giving that grant necessarily infringes on the rights of others to do what comes naturally which is to copy things. So, if the artist creates something in the "copy" medium and then complains that they are not receiving payment for each copy they made a mistake in assuming otherwise. Do what every other business person must do and figure out a business plan for yourself. Again, I feel no obligation to supply one in the form of copyright, neither should you frankly.

Look, if people don't want to share, they don't have to. Nobody of forcing them to. The Internet is an externalization and expression of we humans. One of the very important things we humans do is copy information. Intrinsically, the Internet is all about this. You have to expend effort to even attempt to do otherwise. That effort can be small: VPNs, logins to get to stuff, to large: DRM. In the case of logins and VPNs there is a mutual consent relationship, in the case of DRM there is not. So, no party X is not required to share with me and still use the Internet, the parties that they do share with will have a clear understanding about that private relationship. Copyright is not a license, it is a grant to a single party monopoly control over some work. They exclusively get to decide the conditions under which copies of their work get made. This grant is a public grant, made on behalf of the general population by governments. This is not about several parties coming to a private agreement about how to share information. This is explicitly a case of a government granting exclusivity on the control of a work relative to the rest of the population. This grant is an explicit revocation of claim rights by the general population. Should this work be made available, generally, not between agreed private parties through a private means, then the mere existence of the copyright grant necessarily infringes on the rights of the people who get access to the work. There is no private agreement, there is an imposed restriction, through the government, that the person who gets access to the copyrighted work never explicitly agreed to. Sure you can point out there are all sorts of impositions like this made by governments, and you'd be right, but if those impositions are eventually perceived to be unfair or unjust people change the laws. In the case of copyright restrictions on the Internet (just one of the possible "copy mediums" we are going to be exposed to over the next "while"), they are antithetical to an important and constructive innate and emergent property of humanity: the copying of information. It criminalizes a natural, positive, and constructive behavior. The only arguments in support of curtailing this behavior are in support of monopoly. It is a skewed, and unsupportable thesis: monopoly interest MUST be granted to the creators of works because... because... what? It's fair? to whom? the creator of the work? At what cost? The automatic restrictions of rights of the rest of the population? It is that same general population, the one you've gone and restricted rights of, that are supposed to thank you for your gift by rewarding you for their loss of rights? You'll say that the work is of value, and your right again! It is, but the cost to me, personally, is too great. It is almost a certainty that I will not live to be able to freely use a copyrighted work created today, I will be well over 100 years old. Meanwhile, I have seen numerous performances of plays by playwrights completely in the public domain. It may not be an overstatement (I do not have the facts) to say that Shakespeare is employing more actors across the US today than all of Broadway in NYC. Now, this may seem like a crazy thing to say except when you stop to think about the fact that this is only one public domain author. I do not dispute the claim that the combined employment of actors working on projects still using copyrighted materials almost certainly exceeds the total working on materials based on the public domain, but I would not be surprised if the numbers were close. There was a slashdot article a while back about a study on this issue and even claimed that the public domain accounted for more economic activity than copyrighted works, but I do not remember the details. Anyway, the reason why we are in this situation is that enough folks got sufficiently wealthy exploiting a cheap system to take away the rights of the general population to be able to essentially purchase any copyright term length they choose. As I have said before, I can see no conscionable justification to allow this to propagate, especially to propagate into a medium that so clearly embraces our nature to copy.

OK, I'm going to have one last-ditch attempt to explain the economic consequences of sharing. Are you familiar with the concept of inflation? It can occur when we print more money. The total amount of money represents a certain amount of wealth. We could share money if we wished by printing more and more out and giving to the poor (or even the not-so-poor, and the rich). It is, after all, not a tangible concept, and we can share it. However, for every note you print, you are not adding more value, you are devaluing everyone else's notes very slightly. You are, in essence, stealing a minute part from every person who owns some of the currency in question. In your fantasy world, we could make everyone uber-rich, make everyone be able to afford 100 inch flat screen TVs to go into their summer houses on the moon. It doesn't work like that in reality. Things have a specific value, and you simply can't pull more value out of your ass. You can invest time, effort, and energy into creating something of value (like a service, or a piece of art), but you can't snap your fingers and expect value to be there. Otherwise, we'd all be obscenely rich now.

No, I'm afraid not. Your analysis based on currency is sound, for currency. Firstly, there is a term for the economic model that the Internet is creating: the economics of abundance. I'm not an expert on that subject by any means. You can look up the phrase and debate the merits of their thinking directly. But the basic idea is that a number of economists have come to the conclusion that the Internet represents a break in limited supply economics. Basically, everyone agrees that there is value in the Internet, some of that is tied back to traditional business models using the Internet to buy/sell goods, but that the value of the Internet is greater than that. Music, Videos, blogs, stories, etc. things that can pretty much freely move around the Internet and be copied perpetually also represent economic value, and lots of it. The trick is figuring out how to get that value out of the Internet. There are ways, from advertising, to promotion of hard goods, take homestarrunner for example, they may a lot of money from T-shirts, mugs, and such. That is only one example. The currency example is not applicable because what people seem to be rising to the challenge of doing is capitalizing on the market, the GDP of the Internet if you will. You succeed if you find a way to make money that is not dependant on how many copies get made. Glyn Moody likes to talk about using the Internet that supports freely sharing free stuff as a way to increase the value of the "important stuff" like concert tickets, or getting that consulting gig, or T-shirts.

Artists are smart people. Let them be smart and they can enrich the Internet freely and get rich at the same time. Stop acting like they need protection, it's demeaning. The RIAA/MPAA represent an increasingly unimportant segment of the population that would gladly ruin the Internet if they could to rest on their copyrighted laurels. I'd prefer that they get off their duffs and enrich the world with their work freely and finding ways to get rich off of that in such a way that is not compulsory. It is possible.

You can try it. See how much you can charge for a vanilla copy of a public domain work.

See my Shakespeare point above, and I have purchased copies of many public domain books. The booksellers and publishers were happy to take my money. I was reasonably happy to give it to them. With regard to the "limited release" sort of stuff, the Internet isn't about limited releases, there is no such thing on the Internet. But freely giving away copies on the Internet will very often have the rather pleasant result of increasing the value of the limited release (physical) item you are talking about. This, in fact, is exactly one of the many ways people are using the Internet to make a living. It is possible to play nice on the Internet (let the copying begin!) and make money. Just watch it happen.

To faintly echo one of your own previous statements, why should we accept a very substandard culture just so some pirates can have a media orgy?

It is possible to get out of this spiral: cease making them pirates! Not by getting them to buy stuff, but because their actions are no longer an issue.

For me to be a hypocrite, I would have to show support for this proposition. Feel free to peruse my comments on this thread to find such support, but you may be disappointed.

No, I wasn't disappointed, you explicitly said that it was nice to give (to a charity, if I'm correct), but not to be forced to do so. An organization being a charity bears no relevance, Your comments are supportive of the RIAA/MPAA extorting monies from ISPs, that money would come from you. I'm assuming that you are not a file sharer (ironically, after all I've said neither am I) so you would be unjustly compelled to pony up. Based on one of your other comments:

See, that's another common strawman. Just because I support copyright, doesn't mean I support the RIAA, MPAA, or all forms of copyright as it's currently codified (including, but not limited to, the DMCA).

Again, you are accusing me of distracting from the point, not a strawman. If your notion of copyright is anything other than the legal tool used by the RIAA/MPAA to consider the extortion from ISPs (and hence from us) then you are speaking cross-topic using a definition of a common term: copyright ambiguously given the topic of this thread. It is the "commonly understood" meaning of copyright: an active body of laws, case history, and precedents that provide the legal "teeth" to organizations like the RIAA/MPAA to prosecute copyright violators. In this interpretation, it seems rather clear that you think that the RIAA/MPAA is justified in their actions. Perhaps you didn't come out and say that explicitly, but my guess is that a poll of slashdot readers who followed this thread would consider your expressed positions at least sympathetic.

No, you haven't. You've made a bunch of bold statements based almost entirely on faith. My questions need to be addressed in a concrete manner with real solutions, not just the hope that a real solution will present itself.

Hmmm. So art will die...

Firstly, no, you don't need concrete anything. Art not dying is self-evident, show me art dying with the data everywhere trending towards zero and I might be concerned, I certainly have no evidence on hand of this phenomenon.

Secondly, you asserted the need for copyright, it being "pretty damned good" and so forth. That also seems rather bold given the nature of this discussion. I take it at face value that you do indeed consider copyright an important idea, there is also a fair amount of debate on this subject, not all of that debate (and research for that matter) is so willing to give copyright the "pretty damned good" rating. My opinions are compatible with that group of thought, so clearly that claim alone seems rather bold. Also, your claims about copyright are just as "faith based" as mine as copyright is the incumbent system isn't it? Since we don't have a meaningful alternative to compare against your claims about it's relative value compared to "unknown" other systems does not advance the discussion.

They only need government intervention insomuch as a retailer needs government intervention to prevent thieves. They built their business model around laws that were already set. Why should they have to build their business models to suit people perpetrating illegal activity?

They established their business model before the onset of the Internet. This development, which was known to them from the beginning as effectively the gutting of their way of life, simply changed the rules. This kind of rule changing has happened before in history, it happens, old businesses die out. The illegal activity is illegal in as much as our copyright laws have not kept up. A huge adjustment to those laws, the DMCA, contains provisions that are demonstratively damaging to a number of important aspects of our society and makes this problem far worse, at societies loss. Not to mention the fact that the anti-circumvention clause in the DMCA effectively trumps copyright anyhow.

Anyway, it's not about them building their business models to suit file sharers, it's about the legal tool needed to make their business model even possible: copyright. Copyright in the "copy" medium just simply seems to have no place.