I just read this article and suddenly realized something. The RIAA is all concerned about "not getting compensated" due to media piracy. And artists are rightly concerned about not getting paid enough to be able to make music. I think, though, they are forgetting the basic Golden Rule of Capitalism.

Here's what I see: the RIAA and the "labels" are all upset because they are losing power. That means the people that run it are losing money (or, better stated, they aren't getting as much money as they want). They think that if music is pirated too much, then they won't be able to survive because nobody will pay for music. What they are forgetting is this:

If "nobody" pays for music, then people will stop making music. Before this happens, though, what will happen is that music producers (that is, the actual songwriters and performers) will have to charge more for their service of producing new stuff. The general public will never stop wanting new music, so there will always be a way for some musician to get people to pay for their work. There will be a supply-demand balance that happens.

Sure, things may look very different than they do now, or maybe they won't, but there will still be people able to get enough money to make a living writing and performing songs. Think about it this way - if there was no such thing as copyright, what would happen is that all the publishers would be hard pressed to stay in business (probably go extinct with the presence of the Internet). However, the artists would not go extinct, because people still want their goods. It would be like a comic strip that was in danger of having to go off-line because the author was running out of money. He has a big enough following that in 1 week of his fund raiser he got enough to stay solvent for three years. This wasn't so that people could see the old stuff Mr. Abrams wrote, but so that they would be able to see the stuff he'll write in the future. This is where the value of creative works comes in.

The publishers are somewhat successfully using the legal system to prolong their demise when market forces have destroyed the necessity for their chosen occupation. It's a shift, just like manufacturing is shifting, just like agriculture shifted, etc. etc.

The point is this: music will always exist, because people will always be willing to pay musicians (be it for concerts or just in the form of "I'm gonna give you money so I can hear the songs you'll be able to write in the future because you won't have to work 80 hours/week at Wal-Mart to get by". Publishers, however, don't need to exist any longer. This is why the RIAA is all up in arms. Notice that it's the Recording Industry that's up in arms, not the artists. I think the artists know that, at the very least, they'll be able to book enough gigs to make ~$50k per member per year, which is plenty on which to live.

My prediction is this: if market forces are allowed to prevail (i.e., no intervention through the artificial construct of legislation - including copyright law) the labels will belly-up for the most part, or more likely be relegated to server or CD publisher clearing houses. Archivers, if you will.

Instead of copyright, we should have something like "performance right" where you can freely distribute a recording of a performance as much as you want, but you have to pay the artist some licensing fee or whatever to perform the work. I would actually propose this as a better alternative to copyright, because copyright doesn't seem much to apply. As for copyright for things like literature, I think it should morph to something like "if you get paid for the distribution of this product, $X has to go back to the author". This would be the best solution to the issue I think, and I think it covers the intent and purpose of the original law. Actually, you could switch the performance arts to the same thing: if you charge money for the distribution of this, then $x goes back to the original author.

Granted, I'm biased, but this could even apply to software. It would let people know who the author is, and give people reason to only charge when necessary. Coupled with the "performance rights" I think this would be the best way to go. I'll have to do some more thinking about how "performance rights" might apply to software, since it doesn't really match that analogy.

Anyway, just like everything else, the people who are clamoring for "compensation" in the RIAA are just clamoring for protectionism. They are asking for someone to build them a wall so they don't have to change, and what will happen is they are just building themselves a mausoleum.

Let's think about IP reform, and present something that the politicians can buy. I'm not too concerned about the people in the distribution industry who aren't willing to change with the times, becuase people not willing to change should have to suffer the appropriate consequences for that decision.

Ah, I could prattle on for quite a while longer on this, but I think I'm going to work on writing some of it down in a more formal manner. I might even begin to try and put together some sort of movement. Scary.

I just read another article about the "offshoring" of some job skill set. This one was on programming (true to the /. crowd) but I see lots of this regarding manufacturing since I work in the automotive industry. I have for some time been attempting to formulate a stance on this whole issue, and really understand it, so that I might be able to make educated decisions about the policies that people come up with regarding the issue. Or, perhaps, I might be really off-the-wall and even try and promote my ideas somehow...

What I see as the true problem with "offshoring" is simply spatial inflation. This is the same thing that happens domestically (why the heck does it cost twice as much to live in CA as in SC?). Inflation is just "more monetary units required for the same product / service". Most people associate inflation with "over time" but I think it also applies "over space". Inflation always gives advantage to one group over another; temporally you have the advantage in the past. Spatially you have advantage if you're in a place where fewer monetary units buy what you want/need.

There's more to this, and I'm going to jot down my ideas...

What puzzles me is how inflation happens. Basically the only reason we have money is to buy stuff we want and need. I need sustenance and what I'll call "security" in which I will lump residence (protection from the elements), health care and some infrastructure like water systems / sewer (protection from disease), and such social systems as disaster protection (i.e., firefighters) and violence control (i.e., police, as well as people who keep "nasty animals" from wreaking havoc).

So, let's say that here in the good old US of A, these necessities cost $20,000. Let's say that in (ficticious) Spazland these things cost @20,000. Now, we have this weird thing called an international money market. Somehow the value of $ relative to @ is not based on what those units can buy, but on somethine else. So, let's say that the exchange rate is $1 = @2. So that means that a guy in Spazland only needs $10,000 to get the @20,000 to buy the same amount of sustenance & security as in the US. So if I'm a company in the US, I'd be an idiot not to use my $20,000 to pay for the services of two guys in Spazland instead of the services of one guy in the US.

This is simple math, folks, and I can't say I blame the US companies for doing this. After all, the name of the game (capitalism) is to line my pockets, not those of everyone else. So what's a solution?

Well, if our government was smart, they'd say, "Hey, look at that. Why the heck are we paying Spazland $1 for every @2 when $1 buys the same amount of stuff as @1? We should only be paying them $1 for @1!!!" I don't know how to make this happen, though - given the current world banking system. (Especially since it's not set up to gravitate toward equality - it is set up to move the money to where things are most wanted at a given time).

Another possible alternative is that the government imposes tariffs (or whatever you want to call them) based on exchange rate and buying power ratios rather than some arbitrary percentage. This would apply to all money flow across some border, regardless of product or service. This would make things on-par with each other, then only quality of product at given price would drive selection of source (i.e., US vs Spazland) rather than artificial price difference advantages. For instance: The Spazland company charges some US company $10,000 for services to cover the @20,000 it needs to pay some worker. The Government could step in and go "hey, US company, you have to pay us @/$ * ($STD/@STD) * $pricetag to do business with them. We'll pocket the difference to run our infrastructure services." Thus, the government would charge (@2/$1)*($20000/@20000)*($10000) = $20,000 to the US company, buy @20,000 (to pay the Spazland company) with $10,000 and pocket the other $10,000.

Now, this is always good for domestic groups. Imports will now always cost like they would cost if they were domestic, aside from inherent quality / process efficiency means. However, exporters would dislike it because they would actually have to provide better product/service to compete with domestic suppliers. Right now they can give same quality at much lower price, so people will take it. But this price difference is artificial because it's not based on buying power but on the market, which doesn't make any logical sense.

But what if the US company wants to sell to Spazland? Well, a US worker costs $20,000. A Spazland person would need @40,000 to buy $20,000 to pay for it. What should happen here is that the US govt *could* take the extra $10,000 they pocketed when the US bought from Spazland to pay the US company. The Spazland company would pay the US "one worker" amount of monetary units. In this case it would be @20,000 - enough to buy $10,000. Otherwise, the foreign country would never buy the US product because it would cost twice as much!

The burden of this lies with the governments though. For instance, Spazland couldn't do anything to help because their units are worth less than US units. They would not be able to charge a Spazland company extra money to import and hold it - they would actually have to loan out money for an import. Of course, they could then charge their Companies to export.

Ah, well, I must be off to other things for now, but I need to formulate my thoughts some more. Do some math, that sort of thing. Any comments are apprciated! I plan on continuing this topic later.

Other topics will also be my ideas on Intellecual Property - another common "hot topic" here on /.!