Mark,

> Hi Tuukka,
> It is difficult for me to see your position in this debate as you
> present both sides in a confusing way.  In this country, we have
> flourished under the sense of personal responsibility and freedom to
> create, where such creation brings personal rewards.  This is what, I
> believe, brings about progress and a decrease in human sufferring.
> Perhaps you are not against everything being free, but then I have to
> ask, who is going to do the work to provide the free things if they do
> not get paid?

Mark:
I will. I already get paid no more than my sustenance requires. I
receive the minimum income deemed acceptable in my home country.

Was van Gogh irresponsible because he was a painter despite managing to
sell only one painting in his lifetime? They're now worth up to 80
milloin, but since van Gogh does not _personally_ receive the 80 million
because he's dead, was he a failed artist?

Who made Wordpress? Who made Firefox? Who made Wikipedia, YouTube,
Facebook, etc?

You're speaking like there's no personal responsibility in Finland. But
how can you say that, given that in your country, people apparently
believe this personal responsibility is not perceived as a
responsibility by the people themselves, but instead, has to be forced
upon them with legislation?

> Mark:
> Remember, "he who controls the information makes the rules" (this used
> to be the maxim for gold (the "Golden Rule")  which I have replaced
> with information).  Conversely, if the government makes the rules,
> they control the information.  I am of course against this, but I am
> equally against not getting rewards for hard work.  So, it is a
> question of balance.  The balance is between societal dictates and
> personal endeavors (and rewards).  As I have stated, this is a tricky
> balance, but perhaps MoQ can provide some clarity on this.

Tuukka:
Maybe you don't need to be an artist, because you apparently don't have
an extremely strong urge to do that. I could not do anything except
this, and although I want money, I will not divert my activities from
the actual creative process because I don't need to. Because I just want
to work, and that's really the only thing I want to do with my life. And
if I were doing some PR bullshit in order to not starve or be able to
pay rent, I would feel I am not really working.

The welfare state didn't bring the eurozone down. The Nordic countries
are among the richest countries in the world, with a standard of living
that's higher that that of the US. So I don't see welfare as
irresponsible, and I don't think an artist needs to get rich personally
even if his projects consumed a lot of money. There are grants and such
for that, and basically, I've seen a lot of people here organize events
that cost money with very uncertain prospects of even breaking even.
People like that don't care about making profit. And I've participated
in such events, and they have been the only rock concert type events I
have really felt I belong to. Not because of any financial issues - I
didn't use to even know about them. It's just that they just really
strongly want to make the event, because if they don't do it, there
won't be any such events. It was about the event, not about the money.
Break even was all they wanted, financially. But you don't rent a good
place near the center of Helsinki with some little money. The thing was
about converting financial value into aesthetic and intellectual value
while, hopefully, not losing very much money while at it.

> Mark:
> Currently the money is in the information.  A simple analogy is as
> follows:  In a manufacturing plant, we have the floor workers, and the
> managers.  The managers control the information and do not do the hard
> floor labor.  So, who gets paid more?  This analogy can be extended to
> the trend towards an informational society.

Tuukka:
Huh? Being a manager is "information"? No it's not, it's social value.

The thing with information is that it can be duplicated and transmitted
at insignificant cost. That's why information is different from, say,
food. You can't just send food to someone with e-mail in such a way that
you could also keep the food you sent.

The record industry is an industry that treats songs and movies as if
they were food or some other resource that can't just be copied. This is
extremely inefficient, and they require consumers to pay for the
inconvenience caused by this inefficiency. They don't want efficiency,
because they will go out of business then.

There is no technologically feasible option for stopping piracy,
currently. SOPA and PIPA will do absolutely nothing for this. They are
completely ineffective as a piracy stopping measure, because they can be
circumvented with know-how that can be attained in 15 minutes. It's like
the war on drugs. SOPA and PIPA will cement the existence of software
piracy, because they are such dumb laws that many people with technical
know-how would feel embarrassed if they obeyed them. In addition, they
allow indefinite detention of US citizens without a charge. Does this
not concern you?

> Mark:
> I do not quite understand how an information-based economy has
> relevence to piracy.  How does an information economy prevent piracy?
> Your "outdated business models" does not make much sense to me either.
>   Any business model is formed with the objective of making money (that
> is why it is called a business model).

Tuukka:
Are you saying the production of steam engines is not an outdated
business model, if it has the objective of making money?

> Mark: Making money requires that
> there be no theft.  Perhaps you can suggest an alternative model.
> What sort of "legal business model" are you considering?  We have more
> lawyers than we need right now.  If one doesn't know what to do he
> consults a lawyer.  What is THAT all about?

Tuukka:
Spotify and Amazon's e-books are good. Also Google is a legal business
model threatened by SOPA and PIPA. There would probably be more, but
they already get sued a lot. Ecspecially if they are somehow related to
TV and movies. The record and movie industry are reluctant to go to the
electronic world for reasons that I don't understand. And they don't
state those reasons.

It's quite trivial to make an electronic system for pirating movies and
music, so someone will make it. So basically the record and movie
industry is trying _to_make_the_State_do_work_for_them_ in persecuting
anyone who does something that will make them go out of business, be it
a legitimate business model like Spotify, or criminal activity such as
piracy.

Why should the state work for a corporation that's too lazy to improve?
Why should this work be to tear down new enterprises by people who are
not lazy and want to create new models? What are those people going to
do after that? Do you think they will perceive the treatment they
received as just?

> Mark:
>
> I agree that laws may not be the long term answer, but what do you
> then do about the theft of personal property?  Aren't there any
> aspects of the proposed law that you think are appropriate?  What
> parts of the proposed law do you not like?

Tuukka:
The law is ambiguously worded so I can't deem any part of it
appropriate. I don't find anything good about it, because ambiguity is
not good. It will facilitate detention of US citizens indefinitely and
without charge.

>
> Mark,
>
> What is your proposal for the issue of piracy?

Tuukka:
Offer business models that are at least almost as convenient for
attaining the product as piracy. If one wants a movie and knows how to
use a Bittorrent client, he will have the movie in two hours if it's not
very rare, and all he has to do is to click the mouse a few times.
Compare that to buying DVD:s with area codes and copy protection and
other stuff. The copy protection on Civilization IV was so extensive it
prevented me from playing the game at all. Someone paid for it to give
me as a Christmas present, because I asked him to, and I could never
play the game at all, because the copy protection was overreacting. Very
motivating. And no, game companies often do not refund products even if
they don't work at all.

If it's extremely hard to do things the legal way, good-willing people
simply won't bother to do it, for example because they are busy. It
would be possible to develop legal services that are almost as
convenient as piracy, which is the most convenient and efficient model
if we are only concerned of whether files get transmitted. Then social
pressure will quite easily make people not pirate things, because
initially they want to pay and they want to be lawful. But if they are
given some silly obstacles which make it hard to be lawful, they become
less inclined to be lawful. The big corporations have not developed
better business models out of plain old laziness, and that is not
acceptable and not something the State should protect with laws.

> Mark: How can we bring MoQ
> in to provide clarity?

Tuukka:
See my other message. Pirsig's relationship to information is already
apparently similar to that of mine. He didn't get much company in the
Uni with that, though.

-Tuukka
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