Comments on: The Pirate Bay and Building an Equitable Culture http://digitalbazaar.com/2009/08/30/equitable-culture/ Collaborative Digital Content Distribution Fri, 06 May 2011 11:21:40 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1.3 By: Freememe http://digitalbazaar.com/2009/08/30/equitable-culture/comment-page-1/#comment-132893 Freememe Tue, 08 Sep 2009 19:28:41 +0000 http://blog.digitalbazaar.com/?p=171#comment-132893 An "equitable culture" is not one where some idiot in a suit 10,000 miles away can not dictate what you can do with your own physical property. I own my computer, I own my hard disks, I own my NIC and my router; to say that I may be limited in the way I use those objects is to say that some idiot has some claim to my property. It also implies that the same idiot has a right to spy on me in order to enforce this right he claims. We must at some point in time realize how ridiculous and contradictory this concept of intellectual monopoly is and give it up. When that happens we'll still have supply in the form of ample artists wanting to produce cultural works and demand in the form of billions of people who want to consume cultural works. There will therefore arise a system in which this supply and demand will balance with voluntary exchange; it is a natural ecological/economic function that cannot be defeated or supplemented by force, only interfered with. The market right now is essentially facing a narrow pipe problem, where supply is nearly infinite and demand is very large, but the channels of acceptable exchange are very small. That narrow pipe is bound to spring leaks, and there aren't enough lawyers-cum-plumbers in the world to patch them. Get used to it. An “equitable culture” is not one where some idiot in a suit 10,000 miles away can not dictate what you can do with your own physical property. I own my computer, I own my hard disks, I own my NIC and my router; to say that I may be limited in the way I use those objects is to say that some idiot has some claim to my property. It also implies that the same idiot has a right to spy on me in order to enforce this right he claims. We must at some point in time realize how ridiculous and contradictory this concept of intellectual monopoly is and give it up.

When that happens we’ll still have supply in the form of ample artists wanting to produce cultural works and demand in the form of billions of people who want to consume cultural works. There will therefore arise a system in which this supply and demand will balance with voluntary exchange; it is a natural ecological/economic function that cannot be defeated or supplemented by force, only interfered with. The market right now is essentially facing a narrow pipe problem, where supply is nearly infinite and demand is very large, but the channels of acceptable exchange are very small. That narrow pipe is bound to spring leaks, and there aren’t enough lawyers-cum-plumbers in the world to patch them. Get used to it.

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