Quote:The problem with all these file-sharing studies is that they are based on a bad premise. It may be true that free access to music may increase overall spending, but that does not gaurentee that anyone will spend that money by giving it to the artist directly. If you want to study what actual lack of copyright produces look at music which is being actively and massively pirated, for cash money. The look at how well the original artist does when someone can constantly and consistently undercut his price.
Taiwan is a very different case economically. A much better example would be Spain where file-sharing for personal use is allowed. blockbuster is gone but otherwise it hasn't had much of an effect, Spanish artists still seem to be doing quite well. However i don't have hard data to back up my assertions, but I'll try to find some.
In fact artists don't need copyright as much as other groups, for painters the original painting tends to have most of the value and for musicians the main source of income is usually concerts anyway. Writers need something like copyright, and so do the movie and software industries.
Much of the software industry could exists without copyright, but it would look very different from the software industry today, of the shelf software would be relegated to open source or similar with all software companies either supporting software or making custom software on contract.
But anyway few people are arguing for a world without copyright and those that do usually argue for another compensation mechanism.
for those defending copyright think about the song happy birthday, it's copyrighted, so each birthday party at which it's sung is technically a public performance and it requires a license for it (well public performance is somewhat ill defined, it depends). I would argue that the song is a cultural artefact and that it should be public domain.
E: "Did they... did they just endorse the combination of the JSDF and US Army by showing them as two lesbian lolicons moving in together and holding hands and talking about how 'intimate' they were?"
B: "Have you forgotten so soon? They're phasing out Don't Ask, Don't Tell."