And what determines what is important vs. what is not? Certainly something like spam is pure noise, but what justifies the repetition? I'm trying very hard not to see it as consensual groupthink, but coming up short. I see this in every community: a set of near-sacrosanct 'truths' emerges that inevitably must be defended, and part of that process involves repeating them, often under the guise of 'educating' others.
IMO, the argument is simply being reframed to avoid dealing with the larger and more difficult problem. I'm not interested in avoiding the real issue here -- compensation for creators in the age of easily-copied goods.
If we fix that, the semantics argument won't be an issue. After all, if we have a just system that fairly compensates individuals for creating while providing good incentives for consumers not to infringe, we don't need to nitpick about theft v. infringe.This, to me, serves as a good indication of what is actually important in this issue.
Perhaps the argument is being reframed back and forth, not to avoid an issue, but as proxy to this issue: creators are over-valuing their work and/or copiers undervaluing. The semantics chosen are done so because they reflect the point of view of the speaker. Put a different way: there are 2 ideas of fair out there, each set of semantics represents one idea of fair accurately.
IMO, the argument is simply being reframed to avoid dealing with the larger and more difficult problem. I'm not interested in avoiding the real issue here -- compensation for creators in the age of easily-copied goods.
If we fix that, the semantics argument won't be an issue. After all, if we have a just system that fairly compensates individuals for creating while providing good incentives for consumers not to infringe, we don't need to nitpick about theft v. infringe.This, to me, serves as a good indication of what is actually important in this issue.