Violent artists declare war on the 21st Century
June 8th, 2011Thanks to a lurder (yes, ‘lurder’) who knows just what buttons to push to cause a BLOGDIAL post to emerge, we have this amazing piece of violent assertion from http://www.theartistscharter.org/
Lets pull it to bits.
We the undersigned, writers, artists and musicians, along with our fans and those millions of people worldwide who work in or are otherwise supported by the creative industries say as follows:-
We have the right to earn a living from our work.
True.
We reiterate that basic human right to work enshrined in Article 23 (1) of the UN Declaration on Human Rights, and by virtue of Article 23(3) of that declaration to ‘just and favourable remuneration’ for our artistic endeavours.
False. Rights do not come from the UN. You have no ‘right’ to remuneration; you own your own body, and no one has the right to control you or force you to work under terms that are not agreeable to you. Those are the only rights you have with respect to your labor. There is no such thing as ‘just and favourable remuneration’; there is only what you will agree to work for and what you will not agree to work for. What that amount is for any particular task is up to you and the person who is hiring you to decide through negotiation.
We seek to make technology a friend and not an enemy of our creativity.
I doubt it.
We ask to be allowed to make a living, whether through performing, writing or recording music, derived from the power of our ideas and the commercial use of our talents.
You have a right to do what you want, on any stage or any medium. You already have this right, and should not ask to be ‘allowed’ to ply your trade.
We say it is a fact that the protection of our creative output depends substantially on copyright law, and we urgently call on all governments to assist us in the legal protection of our collective artistic output from piracy and other unauthorised infringement.
This is a lie.
It is absolutely not a fact that the protection of creative output depends substantially on copyright law. This is a myth, one that has been dispelled by by Michele Boldrin and David K. Levine in Against Intellectual Monopoly and others.
When these people ask for all governments to ‘assist’ them, they are actually saying that they want the state to violently put grandmothers in gaol (for example) for copying from objects that they own.
They are asking for the State to do violence for them. This is wrong in every way that something can be wrong.
There is no such thing as ‘collective artistic output’. You own the physical objects that you produce. Once you release them, and someone else buys them or obtains them legitimately, you have no right to tell them what they may or may not do with their property. That means that you have no right to tell someone that they cannot make a copy of a record for someone else, or that they may not re-sell a book they have bought, or that they may not make copies of their own wedding photos or do anything of any kind with something that they legitimately own.
In sum, you have no right to suppress the rights of others by violence because you want to make money.
It is self-evident that any commercial enterprise requires revenue flows to not only survive, but thrive, innovate and take calculated risks.
True.
We say that the internet service provider industry must accept its share of responsibility for the rampant abuse of copyright online. Easy unauthorised access to our material goes unchecked every day across the world and infringers do not seek our consent when sharing our works.
False. Internet Service Providers provide access to the internet. It is not their responsibility to police their users, any more than it is the business of the operators of telephone services to spy on their users on behalf of a malignant and violent group.
ISPs are not part of some imaginary Socialist collective, with responsibility to everyone everywhere. They are private businesses with responsibility to their shareholders only.
Our creative industries are facing unsustainable revenue losses due to weak or unenforced copyright laws. This means one thing and one thing only: millions of jobs lost and young talent ignored.
There are no ‘our creative industries’. The record companies are dying because the world has changed thanks to computers and networks. This is a good thing that will benefit everyone, including the people who make music, write books and do other creative things that can be digitized.
You sound just like the fear-mongers who said that the VCR would, “kill the film industry“, or the clowns who said that, “home taping was killing music“, or or that phonograph records would kill off sheet music sales or that sheet music would kill live performance. All of those were lies, and what you are saying now is also not true. There is a long history of artists and ‘music industry’ people getting it totally wrong when it comes to technology, and this rather ill informed declaration is just another example.
Creative people (the ones who are really creative, and not just lazy, ignorant, unintelligent, computer illiterate luddites) will find a way to adapt to the new reality and thrive off of it, just as previous generations did with the advent of recorded music, VCRs, home copying and every other innovation that helped people spread ideas and wealth.
You people just don’t get it.
While our industry has collapsed to annual revenues of less than US$20 billion, the ISP industry has more than doubled its revenues in the last five years to US$250 billion — due in large part to infringement of our artistic works.
This is a lie. The ISP industry has grown because more people need access to the internet, no matter what is on it. As for the collapse in revenues, even if it is true (which it often is not) the opportunity the internet presents to creative people is without precedent; all that is needed is for you to go out and harness it. You do not need anyone’s permission, all you need is some software and… creativity.
We demand our indisputable right to copyright protection be no longer ignored. ‘Free’ should not come at such a terrible cost.
Copyright is not indisputable, and it is not a right. Copyright it is very disputable, and is in fact, entirely illegitimate. No matter how loud you shout, your buggy whip business model is dead and dying. New people are supplanting you, and while you waste your time trying to prop up the zombie corpse of the old business model they are getting on with the task of inventing the new ways of making money from music, that you will inevitably have to accept.
Stand with us to ensure the creative industries survive.
Standing with you means standing up for and supporting violence and immorality. No thanks!
Here it is, again, the book that you must read to understand the true nature of the State, its laws and the violent truth behind them. If you cannot read, there is always a nice video for you to digest.