I've worked in fast food, and it is a bad thing.

Please, you're trying to say that every derivitive work produced is illegal? ...and here I thought I was talking to someone that had at least a grip on reality...

Technically yes, unless the copyright holder gives them explicit permission, or unless they can somehow outlawyer their lawyers under Fair Use. Isn't that how it works? Heck, even LucasArts go after people try to make Star Wars mods in their games.

Hardly. That would mean anyone who wanted to sell it could. The Music Industry has a hammer-lock on production and distribution. The copyrights you are slurring now are the only thing keeping corporations from competing with you, selling your own work. So, you'd have individuals vs. megalithic corporations. Just like now, only you would have taken away the only tool individuals have to protect themselves FROM megalithic corporations.

P2P? Without copyright and thus, copyright laws, they can no longer go after people distributing it. And when it's completely legal, I don't think people will have any qualms downloading it.

...and don't give me that downloads crap. At the height of Napster popularity, it barely effected music sales.

Not a valid example. That's in a copyright world, we're talking about a non-copyright world. And in the copyright world, it can be argued that P2P actually increases awareness of a product for people who are willing to spend money.

You talk like someone who's never paid for a server. How do you suppose you are going to pay for the millions of people downloading your 5 meg song, hotshot? Donations? Hardy har. Go talk to all the people who rely on them now, WITH exculsive rights to distribute. Bittorrent won't cut it, either.

Millions of people are distributing stuff perfectly fine on P2P with their home connections. I think you should tell them and their connections that what they're doing is physically impossible. If something I make is really that popular, there will be copies of it distributed in other places. And if it's not that popular, then bandwidth isn't that big of an issue.

So, in the end this is just about you wanting a crack at other people's works whether they want you to or not. Nice. People already have the right to give things away. You just want to force them to under the ignorant perspecive that somehow corporations would suffer. You'd be the first one bitching if Microsoft came along and started selling your supposed work. The only thing protecting you from it are the rights you are trying to undermine.

It's called a difference in ideology. And not really, or you'd have MS selling Firefox and every other freeware product out there. In this copyrighted world, they can't do that. In a non-copyright world, no one would bother paying them for it.

Oh, and really, if the only way you can argue is to make caustic comments and baseless assertions, that shows that you really don't HAVE an argument.

I've worked in fast food, and it is a bad thing.

No it's not. My bills are paid. I'm not on unemployment. Now I ask you to quit bad mouthing my line of work.

"Technically yes, unless the copyright holder gives them explicit permission, or unless they can somehow outlawyer their lawyers under Fair Use."

Then why do you keep pretending that derivitive works can't be made? That's exactly what I asked you earlier, so I guess you have a problem with asking for permission?

"Without copyright and thus, copyright laws, they can no longer go after people distributing it. And when it's completely legal, I don't think people will have any qualms downloading it."

Again, you ignore the fact that you are just granting companies the right to rip YOU off. You think people don't download mp3s just because they are scared? Hardly. You, yourself, say that P2P helps sales. People still buy music. The difference is, with copyrights the artist has some hope of seeing a profit.

"Not a valid example. That's in a copyright world, we're talking about a non-copyright world. And in the copyright world, it can be argued that P2P actually increases awareness of a product for people who are willing to spend money.

No, you are applying copyright realities to a non-copyright world. In other words you can steal from artists, but corporations somehow can't. You don't want to buy anything, so everyone else won't, either. In reality, lots of people would buy stuff nicely packaged and distributed by corporations, that the corporations didn't have to give the artist a dime for.

"Millions of people are distributing stuff perfectly fine on P2P with their home connections."

Bandwidth that is metered more and more. Explain to your ISP why you are donating their bandwidth to help Aerosmith distribute their new CD in the great "you don't have to buy anything" world...

"In this copyrighted world, they can't do that. In a non-copyright world, no one would bother paying them for it."

Why, then, are there copies of Dickens in your local bookstore? Why on earth would anyone buy it when they can download it? They same reason they would buy your stolen work instead of downloading it. Unprotected by copyrights, you wouldn't see a dime.

You're just being silly now. You don't want to pay for stuff, so you invent a system where you won't have to, and magically everyone will shun corporations that try to sell your works that lack copyright protection.

I am glad that you finally admitted that this isn't about fairness, rather it is about you wanting to force people to allow you to have their work for free, to use and expand upon as you like. It highlights the skewed definition of 'fair' you seem to have. I would love to see the tantrum you'd have when you got in line behind someone buying your "free" stuff, and not minding paying someone else for it...

Kona: I worked in fast food, and it sucked. Don't tell me what I can and can't say about my own experiences. In my opinion, if you work in a fast food restaurant, your job sucks. Sue me. There's enough PC crap going around as it is. I'm not in the least interested in being 'career sensitive'.

So you had bad experiences with fast food. So have I. Yet my current job is great as are the people I work with. I'm making money that's all I care about.

(This is a reply to the first incarnation of Kona's post #66, wherein he said that not only did I want to be insensitive, I also wanted to be an asshat about it...)

No, I'd like you to grow a backbone and not feel threatened when people say they'd rather make a living from their work instead of working at McDonald's. If you could make a living with your skins or other artistic work, you wouldn't be there either.

I don't feel theatened Baker. Far from it. I just think it's wrong to make fun of others chossen line of work. I don't see you making fun of Jafo for being an admin.

And by the way I didn't call you an asshat.

Dracil's point seems to be that without copyright, no one would sell these works, since they could be downloaded for free. In reality, book stores are right now chocked full of public domain work, and people buy it all the time.

Why would anyone buy skins when they can download them for free? Stardock sells archive CDs of skins that can be downloaded. Why would people buy public domain music when they could get it from P2P? Well, there is music in the public domain right now that people buy every day.

Under Dracil's system, they'd also be buying OUR work, and none of the money would get back to us. I could not as an individual promote and package and distribute my work as effectively as a corporation. So, people would be buying from them, just as they buy Dickens now instead of downloading it from Project Gutenberg.

We wouldn't be donating to humanity, we'd be donating to the industries that would no longer need to pay us for our unprotected work.

A good example:

Much of Gil Elvgren's, a pin-up artist, work ended up in the public domain after the companies he worked for went belly up. Right now, you can buy calenders featuring his pin-ups.

So, why do people buy them? Can't they just download the images and make the calender themselves? Those same people might be buying calenders featuring our work, were it not protected by copyright.

The idea that people won't buy professional goods while there are free amateur equivalents is silly. They do now, and they'd do it even more if all work lost that protection.