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By Dave, July 22, 2005 10:02 pm

BOFH: Chuck it and leg it | The Register

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New and innovative ideas for equipment disposal…

Comments (0)

By Dave, July 22, 2005 11:36 am

cancel that last post… I have heard from the host and they have found and corrected (I hope) the problem. We’ll see. I bought the new master domain name bluespringsbazaar.net earlier after the latest outage but had been thinking about it buying that one anyway just to keep anyone else from getting it. I’ll point it to the bluespringsbazaar.com site for now.

Comments (0)

By Dave, July 22, 2005 9:52 am

GROKLAW
Now, some artists don’t want to share, viewing intellectual property, as they like to call it, as property, just like a dog with a bone. Those who think like that view creative works as their meal ticket, and they want to extract every last dime, not only for themselves, but for their grandchildren as well.
They are free to squirrel their works away in a hole in a tree, if they wish. And they can erect as many gates and pitchforks around it as they like.

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The meal ticket part is what screws with my head.

A hard or paperback book costs what it does mostly due to the labor involved, not in writing it but in printing and then shipping, warehousing, advertising, and then sitting in a store taking up shelf space.

Same with music, and video.

The creative part that is the reason for all of this massive infrastructure is actually about the least part of its personal whole as far as effort and cost.

Lets step back 5 hundred years.

None of this exists. The books that do exist are produced by and mostly owned by the church. The average person and in fact most people cannot read or write. Story tellers were their writers and radio and musicians were regarded as thieves and whores.

Fast forward 4 hundred years.

In cities a fair number of folks could read and newspapers and penny dreadfuls were sold on the streets by urchins.

And then comes radio.

Then TV.

Then the internet.

Today an artist can take a picture and upload it to the internet at a cost of only what the connection and online storage cost. Then the world has access.

If I look at that picture as MY property and MY meal ticket then I need to restrict access to it. But I don’t. Unless you want to make money off of it. If you want to look at it, fine. Use it on your web page not a problem. Collect my pictures and print a book and sell it – Problem.

My writing is the same. Use it as you wish. Unless you make coin I care not. You make a profit on it, I want a piece.

But here again is a rub that I wonder about. In my life I have mostly done work for hire. I fix stuff. Someone pays me for that work. I don’t fix something once and folks keep paying me for it.

And this is were I have a problem with IP. If you are following me that is. Not sure I am at this point.

I go out and fix a car. I get paid. I go and buy a song and download it. And 10,000 more do the same thing. But the song still costs the same thing. Now the guy that wrote the song deserves something… But how much?

The one that wrote the book that just sold millions of copies on it’s first day out. Now she (no names) worked a few months or maybe a year to write that book. Okay, in that time it cost her a few thousand or a few 10 thousand to live. But she made so much more. But had she published on the web it would have cost almost nothing. And she could have gotten it to ALL her fans. And she would have been able to get ALL the money instead of just a few pennies on the dollar. But the HUGE retail sales infrastructure wouldn’t get their piece of the pie. And all those [thousands, tens of thousands, millions?] of gallons of fuel, used in making and shipping the paper, printing and shipping the books, customers going out at midnight to buy the book, wouldn’t have been consumed. And all the trees wouldn’t have had to die to print it on.

But she (read her lawyers and accountants) was scared that the business that she has become would miss out on a few pennies due to pirated copys.

So her fans buy the book and scan, proofread, convert to and ebook and have it available for free within 24 hours. Less time than it took to typeset the original. Now the courts get involved.

I don’t understand. I need enough for me to live on. I haven’t worked at a regular job in years nor do I ever expect to.

If I sell a used book I eat. If not I garden. Or write. Or work on sculpture. Which when sold is sold. No copies and the pictures are free.

Now tell me why I should pay for something that was originally paid for in hourly wages, again and again and again, just because it’s your Intellectual Property.

Folks, here is where I draw the line. I ain’t gonna do it. This whole Farking society is out of control and I will not assist in stopping its demise. In fact if, in any small way I can hasten the fall of big everything I will give my all in doing so.

Not gonna say I will steal from it. Not interested in anyones IP in any way. Not your movies, not your books (I buy them used, and sell them used, and no one but me gets any of it), and certainly not the RIAA’s farking music. I will not pay one red cent that goes into the RIAA’s coffers to allow them to sue more of the musicans fan base.

This has grown too big to be a comment but that’s what it started as and I guess that’s what it will end up as. Warts and all. I’m gonna spell check it and see if it reads somewhat coherent and post…