RE: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

David Schwartz
2003-04-30T20:48:00Z

> Like so many you are laboring under the misapprehension that all
> rights have
> the same precedence. That's obviously dumb and you know it. I have the
> right to keep and bare arms, you have the right not to be gunned
> down while
> buying milk at the neighborhood circle-K. You have the right to smoke, I
> have the right not to have to breathe that smoke. See... "rights" are not
> absolute.

All of these right conflicts are resolved by property rights. Yes, you can
keep and bear arms on your property, but you can't let a bullet fly onto the
circle K. Yes, you can smoke in your house or someplace under your control,
but I can designate my house smoke free if I want to.

> You are splitting a pointless hair. The statement "an author has
> a right to
> profit from his creation" doesn't (and didn't in my mind) have anything to
> do with any follow-on statements about extorting money nor was it
> predicated
> on the "right" in any kind of absolute sense. It is clear and
> obvious that
> the creation of a work that has no value doesn't magically give an author
> the "right" to demand to be paid out of a vacuum. It is, however, also
> obvious that if someone creates something with a substantial value, that
> creator has a right not to be screwed out of that value unilaterally.

The author's right to profit from his creation is about as absolute a
property right as you can imagine. The author could, if he wished, refrain
from disclosing his creation to others at all if he wished. Because greater
rights include lesser rights, he can disclose them under restrictive terms
rather than not disclosing them at all.

This, of course, doesn't ensure that he'll actually profit. That depends on
the actual value of his ideas.

But his right to not disclose the idea if he doesn't choose to is as
absolute a right as one can imagine. And that greater rights include lesser
rights is nearly as absolute.

> In point of fact copyright law is completely about the rights of
> authors, in
> particular it is about convincing authors to forgo their right to hoard
> everything they create. It's about convincing authors that there is good
> cause and reason to release their proprietary death-grip on their works.
> The *goal* is to benefit all man kind, sure, but the law is about salving
> the certain wounds the author will suffer once his ideas leave his control
> and get tattered and recycled by the soiled masses.

But authors could already do this simply by distributing their works only
under contract. You could even have standardized contracts and sign before
you, for example, enter a movie theater or buy a CD.

DS