maximize best case, worst case, or average case? (TCPA

[Gabriel Rocha]

		On Mon, Jul 01, at 10:10PM, Anonymous wrote:
| Brilliant.  Let the market solve the problem.  Why bother with the auction
| part, then?  If the market's going to solve the problem for the 2nd guy
| to hold the copy, why not let it solve the problem for the 1st?  The fact
| is, quoting this mantra is simply a way of avoiding the hard issues.
| You've got to show *how* the market is going to solve the problem.
| Why would content creators get "a lot of money, cash"?  Obviously, only
| if your #2 guy knows that he is also going to get a lot of money for it.
| So you haven't taken a step towards solving the problem; you have simply
| handed the problem off from #1 to #2.

Actually, this is not a question for the individual person, rather a
rhetorical question. Did anyone know how much television would change
the radio industry? In fact, for the first several years after its
inception, TV was a money losing business. The question of *how* doesn't
need to be answered now (this is a proverbial "now" which actually means
ever or "for a long time to come.") In fact, we have these problems now
and they don't seem to retard the economy in any way, rare anythings
pose this problem everyday. In fact, relative values pose this "problem"
everyday. Ever hear  "One man's trash is another man's treasure"?

| The fact is that the market can't solve this kind of problem.  That's
| right, markets are not perfect.  They do fine for ordinary, private
| goods.  But information objects, absent successful DRM restrictions,
| are effectively public goods.  That is, you can't restrict their
| dissemination.  If you try to provide such goods only to a small group
| of people, you've effectively given them to everyone.

Well, since markets are made up of individual people going about their
business to create the market as a whole, I don't see any problems with
this whatsoever. Joe Musician knows that this is the way music works. In
the olden days, people copied music from one another by word of mouth
over and over, songs were "stolen" by musicians and played for other
audiences. The musical business wasn't the joke that it is today. Back
then, it was accepted that music is sound and sound, well, can be
repeated, if not by a recording on a cassette or cd, then by voice. It
isn't a market problem that some people don't get their way. Nor is it a
good idea to have the government dictate who gets what in a free and
willing exchange scenario. Joe Musician does not have to play his music
or "give it" to anyone (imagine the hoopla when someone records a live
show) he does so willingly and of his own free will. Are we to accept
that because he doesn't feel he gets enough for his music that we should
bank the cost of having it mandated that we pay Joe? If he doesn't get
enough for his music, he is free to NOT release it, DON'T publish the
damn thing and stop bitching. I mock those who present reports showing
that the market didn't correspond to previously created models. Markets
aren't wrong folks, the models are.

| This idea of digital content as a public good is developed in detail at
| http://www.tidbits.com/tb-issues/TidBITS-602.html#lnk5.
 
| Markets do not handle public goods well. 

Markets are people, people don't handle public goods well. Perhaps
because people as a whole see the inpracticality of restricting access
to goods that are, well, public. Maybe there is a lesson to be learned
there somewhere.

| Kelsey and Schneier's Street Performer protocol don't work because of 
| free riders.

This is interesting. Just about every system in the world has free
riders. This country has "free riders" that are tax-evaders, car
thieves, you name it the standard, society has someone who doesn't abide
by it. That does not in any way make a system "broken." That the system
has flaws is to be expected, unless he who designed the system doesn't
recognize basic human mistakes. Systems with free riders are not
necessarily broken systems, nor are systems without free riders
necessarily working ones.

| The traditional way to provide for public goods is by government.
| If we don't get DRM, that's probably what we will end up with: government
| subsidies of the arts.  Most musicians and other artists won't be able to
| make enough money to live on even if their works are relatively popular.
| The government will have to tax consumers and distribute the proceeds
| to artists (and the RIAA, etc) in order to protect the content industry.

There is no "content industry" in the tradional market sense. Such an
industry is a fiction created by government exerting control far and
beyond the original intent of government itself. It is proposterous that
because a small group of people cannot get what they want by free
association, they manage to get what they want by manipulating the law
to their benefit. Don't get me wrong, there is a market for content and
music, as long as someone puts a subjective value to a song, there will
be a content market, likewise for weapons and anything the government
deems itself fit to regulate and control, but by and far, that isn't the
"real market" for it does not constitute free association. 

| This is the true alternative to DRM.  Anyone who respects the power of
| markets should understand that DRM is the key to allowing markets to
| function with information goods.  If you oppose DRM, you are working
| to insure that creative content will become a public good.  And if you
| understand econmics, you will see that this is an outcome to be avoided
| if at all possible.

The alternative to DRM for whom? The folks who don't like the way things
are now (read: don't make as much money as they feel they should?)
Musicians out there don't have to "release" (the term itself should give
a clue to those who wish to perform the act on what its implications
are) their music. The true alternative to DRM is for people to "wake up
and smell the coffee." I will gladly make a bet on the fact that
government control on any market is not a good thing for the whole of
society. DRM, in a government mandated form will do nothing but remove
freedoms, however basic they may be. If you understand economics, you
will see that the loss of choice is in fact THE outcome that must be
avoided at all costs, not just if at all possible.