Restating the copyright case

Its expression, not property.

People carry on the wrong thinking that copyright protects property, which can then be stolen. It does not. And the efforts of groups like the recording companies are wrong to moan and complain about loss of sales and loss of property.

The problem is that some people seem to think that the only way to make money is through greater protectionism and treating content as property that needs an artificial scarcity. The whole point is that this is simply not true. It's a fundamental assumption these companies are making that is false.

Delusional debates

We actually see this all the time in debates and it's immensely frustrating. When people talk about why copyright is not that important, and that there are all sorts of other ways to make money, they always hit back with the "but it costs money to make this stuff!" Those who suck off the teat of the old system are so fundamentally wedded to the idea that you must have copyright to make money that they entirely miss the fact that we are talking about ways to make money. Their brains simply default to "no copyright = no money," and thus, to them the argument "but these things cost money to make" makes sense. But that's only true if they don't hear what we say, and don't realize that we are talking about ways to make money -- just without relying on copyright to do so. Copyright protects artistic expression, it should not be used to create artificial 'property' title or product scarcity and thus sales for profit.