Hitting them where it hurts

[Wehrwolfen]

Hitting them where it hurts​

By: Bob
Nov• 09•12


Yesterday Glenn linked to a piece by Morgan Warstler, suggesting that conservatives should push for digital socialism and atomic capitalism:


If someone invented the ability to copy food, or copy oil, there would be riots in the streets if everyone couldn’t have all the food and oil they wanted.

And today, with MASSIVE political upside to conservatives:
•We can promise the have-nots ALL the movies for FREE.
•We can promise them ALL the video games for FREE.
•We can promise them a copy of EVERY song for FREE.
•We can promise them a copy of EVERY single college course taught at an Ivy League school for FREE

Conservatives should & ought to do this.

We should do this because the Entertainment and Academic industries are not on our side, and we have no reason to support them.

We ought to do this because property rights do not and cannot extend to the digital. And we look foolish going along with it.

It isn’t the easiest to read article, but the gist of it is that since socialists are destroying real goods companies and economies with their politics, we should engage in economic warfare of our own, knocking the legs out from under their feel good products which bear no intrinsic worth.

To be honest, I’m not entirely persuaded by his argument. Maybe I don’t fully understand it.

It costs money and time to develop a video game, for example, and the best of any genre these days (Angry Birds aside) can easily run up millions in costs and marketing that the companies must recoup. Video game developers want to eat, too.

Authors that spend time writing books—maybe something like this one—put time and effort into their writing and want to be compensated for the ideas they share and the knowledge they impart. I cannot easily be convinced that the same author who publishes a physical book suddenly should lose his right to profit from it by the virtue of it being offered in a digital format.

Now, if what Warstler is really advocating is the crippling of DRM so that digital content can be resold by the purchaser the same way that a physical book can be resold or loaned, that I can get behind, providing the entire content is being sold, and is not merely being copied. Crappy pablum that I think his music is, Dave Matthews deserves to profit from the original sale of his album in whatever format that album happens to take. Once an album sells, however, the purchaser should be able to sell that copy; it is absurd that the album cannot be sold or transferred by the purchaser to someone else, simply to force another sale for the artist.

If that is what Warstler wants to do with digital movies, music, and video games, I can get behind that. If, on the other hand, he is truly saying that the digital format invalidates the worth of the effort, he’s on his own.

Education, however, is another area entirely.


[excerpt]

Read more:
Hitting them where it hurts « Bob Owens

 

[boilermaker55]

If you want to believe that is what America is today you and the rest of your kind must still be in the bubble. Stay there all you want.
WoW! When will the conservatives ever get it.

Hitting them where it hurts​

By: Bob
Nov• 09•12


Yesterday Glenn linked to a piece by Morgan Warstler, suggesting that conservatives should push for digital socialism and atomic capitalism:


If someone invented the ability to copy food, or copy oil, there would be riots in the streets if everyone couldn’t have all the food and oil they wanted.

And today, with MASSIVE political upside to conservatives:
•We can promise the have-nots ALL the movies for FREE.
•We can promise them ALL the video games for FREE.
•We can promise them a copy of EVERY song for FREE.
•We can promise them a copy of EVERY single college course taught at an Ivy League school for FREE

Conservatives should & ought to do this.

We should do this because the Entertainment and Academic industries are not on our side, and we have no reason to support them.

We ought to do this because property rights do not and cannot extend to the digital. And we look foolish going along with it.

It isn’t the easiest to read article, but the gist of it is that since socialists are destroying real goods companies and economies with their politics, we should engage in economic warfare of our own, knocking the legs out from under their feel good products which bear no intrinsic worth.

To be honest, I’m not entirely persuaded by his argument. Maybe I don’t fully understand it.

It costs money and time to develop a video game, for example, and the best of any genre these days (Angry Birds aside) can easily run up millions in costs and marketing that the companies must recoup. Video game developers want to eat, too.

Authors that spend time writing books—maybe something like this one—put time and effort into their writing and want to be compensated for the ideas they share and the knowledge they impart. I cannot easily be convinced that the same author who publishes a physical book suddenly should lose his right to profit from it by the virtue of it being offered in a digital format.

Now, if what Warstler is really advocating is the crippling of DRM so that digital content can be resold by the purchaser the same way that a physical book can be resold or loaned, that I can get behind, providing the entire content is being sold, and is not merely being copied. Crappy pablum that I think his music is, Dave Matthews deserves to profit from the original sale of his album in whatever format that album happens to take. Once an album sells, however, the purchaser should be able to sell that copy; it is absurd that the album cannot be sold or transferred by the purchaser to someone else, simply to force another sale for the artist.

If that is what Warstler wants to do with digital movies, music, and video games, I can get behind that. If, on the other hand, he is truly saying that the digital format invalidates the worth of the effort, he’s on his own.

Education, however, is another area entirely.


[excerpt]

Read more:
Hitting them where it hurts « Bob Owens