Once again, battles are raging over whether or not we are obliged to pay for books, music, and films. It is immediately obvious that most commenters have not even read Lessig’s books and have no interest in the subject at all, but are merely recounting their emotional anguish.
I’ll recount mine too: but I have at least taken some interest in the subject.
Authors absolutely must be compensated for their work, just like everyone else. As long as it is impossible to live well without working, this state of affairs is normal. The notion that a poor artist creates better work seems wrong to me for many reasons, and besides, that is not an argument: labor must be paid for as long as there is no other way to live.
At the same time, the modern system of copyright laws is terrible and must be changed. On the one hand, a country’s laws must be changed through civilized means, otherwise everyone will suffer. On the other hand, situations often cannot be changed by such means, which is why civil disobedience was invented. Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King are hardly the worst role models.
I am an atheist; my measure of morality is my own understanding. It tells me what I would like copyright laws to look like, and I act as though they already looked that way until they become like that, or at least similar.
And what I want is simple:
1)Everything is available electronically, without DRM
2)Affordable relative to an individual’s income—that is, let there be market segmentation, as long as the prices are reasonable
3)Or available for a monthly subscription fee, with a collecting society taking care of distribution
4)It is highly desirable to provide substantial samples, or even the entire work, for evaluation. For example, in every wealthy country, you can return a piece of technology if it is not suitable. So why can’t you return a book if you do not like it?
I would also add the terms after which a work enters the public domain. Copyright and patent terms should be a few decades long. Preferably just 10–15 years. After all, laws should serve the public good. What kind of good is it when a work is locked away and accessible to the masses only with great difficulty?
That’s all. This is how it will all be; the only question is when.
P.S. Of course, I picked all this up from the book "Free Culture," but from my point of view, the logic here is rock-solid throughout.