… One must adapt to survive.

There is an engaging ‘five part’ series currently running in the Globe & Mail, Canada’s National newspaper, that addresses this issue and many other parallel ones, entitled the ‘Download Decade’, you all might want to check it out …

http://beta.theglobeandmail.com/news/technology/download-decade/how-the-ipod-changed-everything/article1133329/

The irony of course is that for all the ‘naif’ Napsters inventors out there … (that kid was only 18 when he wrote the code that changed how music is ‘distributed’; he claims he did it to share music files with his friends, not as a ‘challenge’ to the then exisiting distribution stream … ) .. ULTIMATELY a ‘new’ business paradigm emerges.

Steve Jobs at Apple intuited the mechanism to take advantage of the explosive paradigm offered via the net, the ipod. It took near 5 years for it to catch on, yet NOW Apple has cornered the market with it’s iTunes ‘on-line’ distribution system. The simple maxim of ‘give the people what they want’ is delivered. Instead of forcing a ‘purchaser’ to buy a whole CD at $25 a pop, consumers can now ‘pick & choose’ and pay .99 cents per download.

Kazaa and their kin will ALWAYS exist, cuz EVERYONE likes to get ‘free’ stuff. (Admit it, so do you…) But, in the main, once ‘adjustments’ have been made to maximize the CURRENT ‘distribution’ revenue stream, life will go on. The internet is in it’s infancy. Many changes will come as it matures. It’s going to be a ‘bumpy’ ride. Rather then ‘resist’, one must ‘adapt’.

I also believe that ‘the cream always rises’. Mediocrity MAY have a 15 minute window, but ‘True Talent’ endures, flourishes and further inspires. ‘Britney Spears’ & ‘Jessica Simpson’ may have their day, but Meryl Streep or Juliette Binoche will ENDURE … This is true for any Original, be they in the arts, or in the business of the arts.

“…which has nothing to do with the interests of individual artists.”

Except when the corporations are also the clients of the individual artists, which client-vendor relationship may in fact be greatly in line with the interests of an individual artist.

Of course, this is pretty fractured, and also under assault, even in advertising, but I’m not convinced that the answer is to fundamentally restructure the copyright system.

Helprin has his own agenda (promoting his book), hence the emotional hysterics that contain not only no evidence but misrepresent the role of the Creative Commons + EFF. Those organizations do not stand for piracy.

The RIAA, MPAA, BSA and IIPA are funded by huge corporations “whose revenues, profits, expense account sizes, and share prices all depend on licensing one or more of the six rights a copyright owner receives under the 1976 Act.” Corporations who leeched off artists in the past, and are now finding themselves left out of the direct artist-to-consumer relationship.

Those corporations acted as distributors of creative work, and like the newspaper publishers, are unable to compete with the ultimate distribution capabilities of the internet. What they are able to do is fight desperately to maintain the status quo, which has nothing to do with the interests of individual artists.

Back and forth and so on.

Finally, me, “Copyright is not only a federal crime but a criminal first degree felony in Florida. I deliver my complaint to Orlando PD and they arrest you.
You are libel both in Florida and federally. Pay me now or pay me later, but you will pay me”.

Result, $1800 for two 20 x 40 prints.

You have to fight for your rights. No one else will!