Yeah, I think people pay to get those little plastic discs with paper cover slips for much the same reason that people pay to get those little plastic and crepe paper poppies before ANZAC day (and from where I type this, I can see both). IMHO it's not because people have a burning desire to possess little plastic and paper trinkets per se, but rather they consider it a tangible sign of a virtuous contribution to a worthy cause.

However I think this depends on the belief that a decent part of their contribution is actually going to a worthy cause. I understand that many people who would otherwise have bought plastic and paper poppies were less motivated to recently, because of a (mistaken?) belief that some of the proceeds were going off to some company in China rather than to the RSA. I think it's fair to say that if 90% of the proceeds went to some random company, people would feel pretty ripped off.

I think a similar situation applies with CDs. That collection of plastic discs with paper cover slips next to me used to be something of a source of pride once, when I was a bit more naive I guess, but I've pretty much lost that now. I can't imagine, either, that if you (zcat) were to stop by for afternoon tea one day, noticing my collection of trinkets would do much to impress you with my virtuosity (cybertao maybe more so, but because of our differences of opinion, I'm not too concerned whether they consider me virtuous or not). Supporting a creative artist is virtuous. Supporting some overpaid po-faced recording industry executive just doesn't have the same cool factor, and without that, CDs are basically just an expensive collection of second-rate cup coasters, because, I don't know about anyone else, but in all honesty I can't remember the last time I actually played one. Yeah, I know someone's going to point out that the artist gets a few cents, curate's egg (linked) anyone?

I agree, except that I do think some people (at least those anything like myself) need confidence that their money is going to a worthy cause, and a token in recognition of their virtuosity. (I could just post off a cheque to the artist/the RSA, but what's the point in being virtuous if you don't get any credit for it?) I'd happily shell out for a CD with "CC BY-NC-SA 3.0, all profits go to the artist" on it. Until anything like that happens, then yeah, you would need to force me.

As I mentioned, Sue already knows exactly how little of the price of a CD goes to the artist. I think she just wanted to have the actual shiny disk so she's got something tangible she can put in the slot of her laptop. Cairo collects vinyl records for a similar reason, she's decided there's something 'cool' and retro about having the record and the original album cover, and always digs through the record box at OP shops even though she could easily download the same music in seconds off p2p. She spends a fair bit on them.

And I think you're an exception (as am I) .. I know a lot of people spend money on a disk they don't really need with the misguided idea that any significant amount of the money goes to the artist, I'm fairly sure the majority buy because they just want the disk, and some people pirate because they don't really care either way, but I don't think many people consciously refuse to pay for media on the basis that most of the money goes to the media industry and a pittance to the artist. Perhaps I underestimate this.

Perhaps you do. While I'm a intelligent person who can see the cost and harm claims made by the MPAA and the RIAA are absurd, I think harm is caused and currently minimized because half the population of NZ struggle with Trade Me, email, and Facebook. I believe harm is caused because so many don't consciously think their actions as an individual has an effect or simply don't even think twice about it - the same issues in society we face with pollution and recycling.

Where does The Pirate Bay fit in with commercial/non-commercial copying? They hide behind layers of obscurity using magnetic links to torrent files of content they don't host, and profit from advertising by not trading the content they are renowned for,

The Pirate Bay are located in Sweden, not New Zealand, and therefore our policy is completely inapplicable to them. Users of the pirate bay do not pay for downloads and are not paid for the upload part of torrenting, so under our policy they would be unrestricted.

Oh, so unstructured individuals and sectors of society can take unbridled advantage of an unstructured internet.
We all ready have that, and the current solutions to cracking that nut involves structuring the internet. I thought the party might have reached the stage where it could offer a more workable compromise to preserve a greater good than the "right" to download commercially produced movies, television, and music.

Taking a less complex example; MegaUpload was being run primarily from New Zealand, and the Pirate Party of New Zealand policy would have been that it should have been set up more like Youtube as far as copyright infringement goes; Make it much easier for copyright owners to identify there work being shared, and give them the choice of profiting from it or not sharing it at all. It seems likely that MegaUpload might never get to trial, which is disappointing because I understand that KCD has evidence that copyright holders were negotiating exactly such revenue sharing, and we've all heard about the plans for MegaBox.

If the Pirate Bay was run in New Zealand, they way they're currently set up I'm still not entirely sure that it would be in the same situation either. They don't host any copyright infringing content, they stopped running trackers some time back and are in the process of dropping all torrent files in favour of magnet links. Which means that the service they provide is really only a discussion forum centred around file sharing.

Should Trademe's message board be considered copyright infringing because I was able to post a magnet link there? (I have done so twice, neither were ever removed)

Kia ora

A couple of points. First, laws around copyrights were not created to help people make money out of their creations. This is one of the lies propagated by people who use the phrase "intellectual property" as if it means something. They were created to encourage authors (in the broader sense of the word which includes people who write, draw, compose music etc) to publish their work, rather than circulating it privately, which in a pre-internet society meant the public would never get to see it. In order to get the carrot of the copyright protection, the author had to accept their work eventually entering the public domain. In other words, copyright laws were created to serve the *public good*, not private profit.

Secondly, since the rise of mass publishing, authors have made less money from their work than executives, lawyers, and the rest of the army of intermediaries who make up the publishing industries. The internet as it stands offers authors the same opportunity to make money that the publishing industries do. With some creative design, it could offer them an even better opportunity. Crowdfunding sites like PledgeMe.co.nz are even now offering new opportunities to authors to fund the costs of self-publishing, and there is huge potential in tools like BitCoin/ Freecoin to allow audiences to make donations during downloads.

Implications of points one and two; since increased restriction of copying does not serve the public good (the original goal of copyright law), and since copyright has not helped authors make money, it follows that allowing free distribution (which clearly does serve the public good) can do no financial harm to authors, and has in a number of cases been financially beneficial to them. CreativeCommons published a book called The Power of Open with many case studies illustrating this:
http://thepowerofopen.org/

Thirdly, the deeper question lurking beneath the debate around copyright is; 'do we as a society want to support people to specialize in artistic/ design/ intellectual work' which, unlike farming or manufacturing, doesn't easily translate into product for which money can be charged at the point of use or distribution. Perhaps we don't. Perhaps the internet and crowdsourcing will make being an artist or programmer or scientist for a living as absurd as breathing for a living. I think not though. Just because recipes are freely available and everyone can learn to cook, society still has a place for specialist chefs and all manner of other paid jobs in food prep.

The question then becomes; 'since society wants specialist artists/ designers/ intellectual workers, how is it going to support them?' The usual method at this point in history is national currencies (what most people think of when they say 'money'), but many commentators like Nicole Foss of AutomaticEarth believe that these currencies will not last because their value is pegged to an economy based on fossil fuels (especially oil, whose global extraction peaked in 2005/06). Other more creative possibilities are emerging. Timebanks are getting up and running around the country that allow people to pay creative specialists in time credits:
http://timebank.org.nz/locate

Finally, this whole question ties into much deeper questions about the nature of money, and why 1% of the global population seems to have 99% of it, and thus control 99% of decision-making about the use of the world's resources. Charles Eisenstein's book 'Sacred Economics' makes some salient points around these issues, and is available under a CC-NC-SA license:
http://www.realitysandwich.com/homepage ... _economics

Naku noa
Strypey

Kia ora koutou

Microsoft are funding a Russian company to launch digital attacks on BitTorrent users:
https://torrentfreak.com/microsoft-fund ... ic-120513/

I've blogged some thoughts on this here:
http://www.coactivate.org/projects/disi ... /05/17/83/

Ngā mihi,
Strypey

Kia ora

Have you come across the 'Creator-Endorsed Mark' developed by QuestionCopyright.org?
http://questioncopyright.org/creator_endorsed

It offers a way for audiences to identify versions of a free-licensed book/ song/ film/ whatever which are officially endorsed by the artist. It's particularly helpful if, like me, you only want to buy media from publishers who give a decent proportion of the money I'm giving them to the artist. In the past I've tended to support grassroots music by going to shows, and buying CDs at the door, but if I could go into a music shop, and buy a 'creator-endorsed' CD/ flash drive/ whatever, might actually get me going to music shops again.

Hei kōnā
Strypey

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011 ... are-fakes/

The interesting thing is, they have as much right to upload garbage under the ideal where everyone is free to exchange any information they like.

The rage directed towards the fake Pirate Bay website that was scamming people got a giggle from me as well. Surely it's fine to duplicate their information as they can't really own any of it?