Copyright and Rereading
I just had a thought, and of course I always respond to having thoughts by posting them on my Livejournal.
I think my intuitions about free culture and so on are, at least in part, shaped by the fact that I almost never buy a book that I have not read, unless it's by an author who I have excellent reason to believe is consistently awesome, especially if it's part of a series that I have loved so far.
I buy books that I have read and loved, or whose prequels or similarly authored works I have read and loved. Why in the world would I spend money on a book I may not like, when there are public libraries and friends who will lend me books? I read so quickly that the only reason for me to own a book is if I'm going to read it many times over. If I only want to read it once (or don't know if I want to read it more than once), I can get it for free long enough to do that.
With other media, I rarely want to consume it twice. This is partly a time issue. I can't "watch fast" the same way I can read fast - that movie will be a couple of hours long no matter what I do. As far as I can recall, since I grew out of my infantile love of endless repetition, the only movies I've deliberately watched (as in, drove the decision to see instead of merely accepting a consensus) more than once are the Back to the Future movies - and those I saw the second time at a free screening at my school, which I would not have attended if it had cost me so much as a cent. I have burned to disk a lot of my pirated anime, but I haven't actually watched any of it again - the exceptions are bits and pieces of the couple of series I've toyed with the idea of making AMVs for.
The exception is music. I listen to music over and over, perhaps because it's so easy to multitask with. However, despite my distinct taste for musical piracy, music is also something I've occasionally been known to spend money on. This is probably no consolation to those individuals whose music I've pirated (not that any of them are aware of me), but taken in aggregate, the music industry and its artists have netted some money from me as a customer. I probably would have spent less money on music if I chose not to pirate any, because in order not to pirate music when it's so easy, I'd have to learn to control my desires to have the songs I want. If I could control my desires to have the songs I want, my fiduciary responsibility would kick in more than it already does, and I'd scarcely buy any at all, instead of saving it for things I can't find illicitly. This is what I do with movies. If I can't get it for free, I don't watch it. I deal with that. (Flimsy excuse though this is, I expect my father will think when he reads this entry.)
Ultimately, though, I defend my views by saying that I practice what I preach. My webcomic is under a Creative Commons license, and I also successfully badgered my co-author into doing the same thing for our work of serial fiction. If I had any shareably-good music or video or other creative work, I'd do the same thing.
I think my intuitions about free culture and so on are, at least in part, shaped by the fact that I almost never buy a book that I have not read, unless it's by an author who I have excellent reason to believe is consistently awesome, especially if it's part of a series that I have loved so far.
I buy books that I have read and loved, or whose prequels or similarly authored works I have read and loved. Why in the world would I spend money on a book I may not like, when there are public libraries and friends who will lend me books? I read so quickly that the only reason for me to own a book is if I'm going to read it many times over. If I only want to read it once (or don't know if I want to read it more than once), I can get it for free long enough to do that.
With other media, I rarely want to consume it twice. This is partly a time issue. I can't "watch fast" the same way I can read fast - that movie will be a couple of hours long no matter what I do. As far as I can recall, since I grew out of my infantile love of endless repetition, the only movies I've deliberately watched (as in, drove the decision to see instead of merely accepting a consensus) more than once are the Back to the Future movies - and those I saw the second time at a free screening at my school, which I would not have attended if it had cost me so much as a cent. I have burned to disk a lot of my pirated anime, but I haven't actually watched any of it again - the exceptions are bits and pieces of the couple of series I've toyed with the idea of making AMVs for.
The exception is music. I listen to music over and over, perhaps because it's so easy to multitask with. However, despite my distinct taste for musical piracy, music is also something I've occasionally been known to spend money on. This is probably no consolation to those individuals whose music I've pirated (not that any of them are aware of me), but taken in aggregate, the music industry and its artists have netted some money from me as a customer. I probably would have spent less money on music if I chose not to pirate any, because in order not to pirate music when it's so easy, I'd have to learn to control my desires to have the songs I want. If I could control my desires to have the songs I want, my fiduciary responsibility would kick in more than it already does, and I'd scarcely buy any at all, instead of saving it for things I can't find illicitly. This is what I do with movies. If I can't get it for free, I don't watch it. I deal with that. (Flimsy excuse though this is, I expect my father will think when he reads this entry.)
Ultimately, though, I defend my views by saying that I practice what I preach. My webcomic is under a Creative Commons license, and I also successfully badgered my co-author into doing the same thing for our work of serial fiction. If I had any shareably-good music or video or other creative work, I'd do the same thing.