The Balloon, The Boat, And The Copyright
(I hope I am not infringing anybody's copyright with this:)
Question:
On a hot air balloon which is close to crashing, there are three scientists.
The first one is an environmental scientist who can save the world from the severe pollution problem.
The second one is a nuclear scientist who can save the world from the shadow of nuclear wars.
The third one is an agricultural scientist who can save the world from famine.
One of them has to been thrown out, otherwise the ballon will crash. Who should be thrown out?
Because of the big prize for the best answer, numerous people offered various answers with their reasons.
The final winner was a little boy.
His answer was: the fattest one.
I just discussed with T*****. He stumbled upon a news headline about a Hispanic woman in the US who has to pay some 20,000 US$ for music copyright infringements.
Of course, the talk turned fundamental in no time. Basically, he wanted to convince me that it's okay to download mp3s from a peer-to-peer network when the copyright owner doesn't *sell* the song currently. The downloading party has an overriding need for this song, so he should be morally entitled to download. (Compare this to the situation of licensing some antiviral drugs.)
I mean, what? Can you force somebody to sell you stuff? And if he doesn't want to sell, just get it, it *should* be up for grabs? It's like sharing the neighbour's wife when he's not looking and he doesn't want to! However, this disappropriation seems to be okay for today's globalization critic :-).
It reminds me of a short paragraph in either "Tom Sawyer" or "Huckleberry Finn" - one of them goes down to the river (oh, btw, "down to the river" is just *such* a great song) and borrows a boat from somebody who just happened not to be there...
I will go to visit my family this weekend... I think on and off I need some time away from the frenzy here.
Question:
On a hot air balloon which is close to crashing, there are three scientists.
The first one is an environmental scientist who can save the world from the severe pollution problem.
The second one is a nuclear scientist who can save the world from the shadow of nuclear wars.
The third one is an agricultural scientist who can save the world from famine.
One of them has to been thrown out, otherwise the ballon will crash. Who should be thrown out?
Because of the big prize for the best answer, numerous people offered various answers with their reasons.
The final winner was a little boy.
His answer was: the fattest one.
I just discussed with T*****. He stumbled upon a news headline about a Hispanic woman in the US who has to pay some 20,000 US$ for music copyright infringements.
Of course, the talk turned fundamental in no time. Basically, he wanted to convince me that it's okay to download mp3s from a peer-to-peer network when the copyright owner doesn't *sell* the song currently. The downloading party has an overriding need for this song, so he should be morally entitled to download. (Compare this to the situation of licensing some antiviral drugs.)
I mean, what? Can you force somebody to sell you stuff? And if he doesn't want to sell, just get it, it *should* be up for grabs? It's like sharing the neighbour's wife when he's not looking and he doesn't want to! However, this disappropriation seems to be okay for today's globalization critic :-).
It reminds me of a short paragraph in either "Tom Sawyer" or "Huckleberry Finn" - one of them goes down to the river (oh, btw, "down to the river" is just *such* a great song) and borrows a boat from somebody who just happened not to be there...
I will go to visit my family this weekend... I think on and off I need some time away from the frenzy here.
posted by PJS at
Tuesday, December 13, 2005
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