When you produce something that ends up being a form of digital media, and therefore effortlessly copy-able, for practically zero cost, you cannot continue to expect a premium selling price when making an exchange. At that point, what you are selling is a pattern.

A customer is using their own equipment and electricity to display that pattern for a visual or auditory experience. The customer also paid for the transmission lines and connection, which was used to transfer the pattern from one location to another.

We could distill this further, and say what you are selling is an idea. The customer is responsible for manifesting that idea at their location, on their equipment. Yet, you as a content provider, want to get paid for what exactly?

What is it you are actually doing? Did you create the content? Did you pay for your own equipment, that was used to make the content? Did you pay for the electricity used to power the equipment that was used to make the content? Did you pay for the equipment and connection that was used to transmit the pattern?

You want people to not copy the pattern. You want people to only let you send the pattern to other people.

This is like a musician that creates a song, using notes and rhythms that we've all heard before, but structured in a different way, to synthesize a new pattern, and 30 years later still wants to get paid for that previous effort.

As an electrician, should I be getting paid every time the musician flips on the light switch in the studio of his mansion, that I installed when it was being built? Do I keep getting paid for work I already did in the past?

Should music companies, studios continuously get paid for work that was done in the past? Is this a small payment spread out over time to cover the original large upfront cost of production? How would the rest of us know when that cost has been completely paid off? How would we know when any further payment is in excess?

Copyright only matters in a world of desperation.

Everyone is supposed to participate in the enforcement of the copyright laws, according to the music and movie industries. Everyone is supposed to go through all data transfers with a fine tooth comb, so these industries can grab every penny of profit. A profit based on the transfer of patterns.

When everyone is forced to bend to the will of a narrow few, you end up with crap product as well as limited expression of idea, as well as limited synthesis of ideas. In other words zero creativity. Zero invention. Zero problem solving. Zero inspiration. Zero evolution. Just a few losers riding the coattails of a few creative types who most likely died a long time ago. But they want everyone to become police for their financial benefit, regardless of the actual business these conscripts are in.

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Key Internet Players Call For Clarification of ‘Notorious Piracy Market’ Term

https://torrentfreak.com/key-internet-players-call-for-clarification-of-notorious-piracy-market-term-191015/

today by Ernesto

The Internet Infrastructure Coalition is asking the U.S. Trade Representative to clarify what a 'notorious piracy market' is. The group, which represents tech firms including Cloudflare, Google, Amazon and Verisign, warns that calling out key Internet infrastructure companies as rogue actors, as some rightsholders have done, puts the Internet in danger.

Earlier this month, several copyright holder groups sent their annual “notorious markets” submissions to the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR).

The U.S. Government uses this input for its annual review of notorious piracy markets, an overview of threats to various copyright industries.

The recommendations, including those from the RIAA, MPA, and ESA, traditionally include well-known piracy sites such as The Pirate Bay, but increasingly third-party technology providers are also being added to the mix.

For example, domain registrars and hosting services are regularly listed, and the same is true for advertising companies. Cloudflare has been frequently mentioned as well, although it’s not officially listed since the overview focuses on foreign entities.

The copyright holder groups who send these recommendations hope that the U.S. will include these companies in its final overview. That would put pressure on the sites and services as well at the countries from where they operate.

However, not everyone is pleased with this development. According to the Internet Infrastructure Coalition (I2Coalition), which counts Amazon, Cloudflare, Google, OVH, Steadfast and Tucows among its members, third-party intermediaries don’t belong in this list.

“Notorious markets should not be confused with neutral intermediaries such as Internet Infrastructure providers,” the I2Coalition writes in a letter to the USTR.

The coalition notes that some submissions, including those from the International Intellectual Property Alliance, have gone too far by suggesting copyright protection measures that would harm Internet infrastructure and therefore the Internet as a whole.

The group notes that Internet infrastructure providers, such as DNS providers, route users of the web to the right online locations. These services simply refer requests and don’t control the information at the locations where people are directed.

“The nature of these kinds of businesses is that they have limited access to content information. There are intermediaries between various segments of the Internet as a whole. They are not markets. Yet, these kinds of companies may be erroneously listed in the USTR notorious markets report,” the I2Coalition writes.

The Internet companies add that recent updates to the law have highlighted new enforcement options. However, it is not clear what must be enforced. This can become problematic when various stakeholders have different views on what the term ‘notorious market’ means.

“It is in this lack of clarity where many who submit to the notorious markets either by mistake or intentionally mischaracterize the concept of notorious markets for the purposes of identifying intellectual property infringement.”

The coalition calls on the USTR to deliver clarity as some of the current submissions vilify specific technologies, it says. Instead, the process should be limited to the ‘notorious’ sites and marketplaces themselves, not third-party intermediaries.

“We believe that the spirit and letter of the relevant IP laws are better upheld by going after true notorious markets, not throwing the baby out with the bathwater by going after Internet infrastructure providers,” the I2Coalition stresses.

The letter doesn’t mention specific companies or services the coalition believes were mistakenly called out. However, the coalition makes it clear that an effort to clear up what a ‘notorious market’ is should include a variety of stakeholders, not only those who represent the copyright industry.

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A copy of the letter the Internet Infrastructure Coalition sent to the US Trade Representative is available here (pdf).

https://torrentfreak.com/images/issue-outlines-notorious-markets-USTR-coa.pdf