On 1/20/12, Tuukka Virtaperko <mail@tuuk...> wrote:
> 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?
>
> I will. I already get paid no more than my sustenance requires. I
> receive the minimum income deemed acceptable in my home country.

Do you work for free then?  Or do you actually have to pay for things?
Is there a profit system in Finland, or is everything based on
goodwill?  How do you define your sustenance.  Is there a government
rule as to how much you need?  Do some people need more than others?
>
> 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?

This is an interesting example.  Why would anyone call Van Gogh
irresponsible?  He was supported by his brother who actually worked
quite hard for the two of them.  I am a big fan of Van Gogh, are you
suggesting that an artist should be judged by how much they make?  In
a free economy, it is supply and demand.  His paintings go for a lot
because people want them (since he cannot make anymore), not because
he is a good artist.  You know as well as I do that the price for such
art is a complete scam.  It is set by just a few people.   How would
you define such a thing anyway.  What makes a good artist in your
opinion?  If nobody wants to buy your art, are you still a good
artist?  As far as I can tell, you would support the idea that the
painting be given away for free, just like software, movies, or music
that is pirated on the internet.  Am I wrong?
>
> Who made Wordpress? Who made Firefox? Who made Wikipedia, YouTube,
> Facebook, etc?

People who are making lots of money, they simply have a different
business model.  There are not too many people that work for free.
>
> 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?

Well, I never said that!  I agree with your assessment of the US.
>
>> 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.

Why are you harping on this artist thing?  I am an artist.  If you do
not think that science is an art, then perhaps I can teach you
something.  As a scientist I am just as creative as a musician or a
painter.  I do not divert my activities from the creative process
either.  Otherwise I would be useless as a scientist.  I would not
call what you do an "only thing".  That is just silly.  Are you saying
that those who do PR are not artists at their jobs?  You seem to be
creating a class of people where there is none.   All of us contribute
to society with our art.  What in your opinion makes an "artist"?  Are
you saying that as an artist you are somehow different from the
regular people?  I do not see you as such.  If you contribute to
society, you are the same as the rest of us regular people.
>
> 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.

Tuukka, Tuukka, this discussion was about piracy.  What is all this
stuff about artists and standard of living?  Many artist want to get
rich.  Is there something wrong with them?   When they get rich they
can use that money to make better art.
>
>> 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.

Mark:
All that we do can be considered social value.  Would you consider a
bank to be information based?  It is considered as such, since it does
not produce any goods or services.  My example of the manager was that
as one moves farther away from the actual manufacture of goods, one
relies more on information.  Perhaps I was not clear with my analogy.
For that I appologize.  But don't get stuck in the slicing and dicing
of the sentences and miss the overall context.
>
> 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.

Music on the internet is considered information (bits and bytes).  Yes
it can be copied, that is what we are talking about.  Ilegal copying
of information.  It is no different from Food, if you own it.  Does it
bother you if somebody comes in and steals your food?  Maybe this is
common in Finland ;-).
>
> 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.

So, Is what you are saying is that musicians have no right to make
money off of what they create.  The terms between a large record
company and a musician is a completely different subject.  Yes,
companies do not like to go out of business.  What if the factory you
want to work in went out of business because people were allowed to
steal what they made?  Would this be OK with you?
>
> 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?

Tuukka, I asked you what parts of the bill is dumb.  Could you be more
specific?  Which part do you have a problem with?  If people do not
want to follow the law, that is their choice.  Do many people not
follow the law so that they do not get embarrassed?  Where did this
indefinite detention come from?  You are really coming out of left
field (as we say in this country).  What in God's name are you going
on about?  Let's relax here and have a reasonable conversation.

Hitler killed 6 million Jews!  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?

What do you think business is.  It's function is making money.  Your
question does not make any sense.  Let me ask you this:  If a musician
goes around killing people with his guitar, is this an outdated
business model?  What if he gets paid by the Mafia to do this, and
makes money.  Is this an outdated model?  What if he uses steam
engines to dispose of the bodies?  The sales of steam engines will go
up!  In fact steam engines could be the future of the
musician-killing-with-guitar-and-disposing-body industry.  Want to
invest?
>
>> 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.

Google's business model is to make money off of adverts.  If people
are not allowed to plagarize and post illegal movies on youtube,
perhaps the advertising revenue will go down.  It is a person's right
to sue if a company is stealing from them.  That's the American way.
Movies made today are mostly digitalized.  Technicolor has a building
near me, and they are going broke.  Kodak is going broke because most
of photography is going digital.  The record industry is based on
digitized music (although I still like the vynyl), and plenty of
companies have gone that way.  There are some companies that have
missed the boat, but believe me if they had known this was the future
and the way to make money, they would have jumped at it.
>
> 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.

I was wondering, in Finland if there is a murder, does the State get
involved or does each citizen have to do_it_for_themselves?  It would
appear that you are against laws that try to discourage theft.  Does
your airline industry have government regulations which help protect
people?  Or does each person have to do_it_for_themselves?  Why should
you regulate the airline industry if airplanes which are unregulated
are cheaper to fly?  Is the government trying to make such industry go
out of business?  Why does the government interfere here?  I think
unregulated airlines should be allowed to flourish in Finland!  That
is if Finland is big enough to need airplanes :-).  I bet you have
some laws about pharmaceuticals in Finland.  Is this because cheaper
drugs would put the big pharmaceutical out of business.  Drugs coming
in from Nigeria is a perfectly legitimate business model.
>
> 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?

Yeah, I agree.  Why should we have laws against theft at all!
Shouldn't people have to improve and put large barbed-wire fences
around their houses and carry large guns!  Come-on!  The thief has a
perfectly good business model, everything is free!  We should not
interfere with that!  Those citizens who do not surround and protect
their homes to the death will receive just treatment!  If they do not
think this way, they are just babies and complainers!
>
>> 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.

Which part of it?  Please be specific, I would like to see your skills
in law.  People in this country are already detained.  They sit in
their homes and watch TV or surf the internet.  Do you think they want
to just vegitate away in this manner?  I think not!

Got tired.

All in good fun, of course.  I respect you.

Cheers,
mark
>
>>
>> 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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