Well, that's simply because, and you know the truth, that statement would be a striking demonstration that you, yourself, had never learned anything resembling a code of ethics or morality yourself. Well, never learned them as anything more than words anyway. Words to be used simply when they serve you but to be discarded whenever something unpleasant entered your world view. I figured you were smart enough not to want to go there.

so you're advocating shooting the RIAA twice in the back of the head too right? I mean, they are stealing/extorting money from people.

To play devil's advocate here, and I don't know much about the case so please correct me if I am wrong, the posters here seem to put no credence in what Jon is saying but everything with the mom.

#1) You guys beleive the mom when she says it wasn't even her kid but her kid's friend. Funny I have never heard a parent use that excuse before. 100-1 odds it was her kid that downloaded the music.

#2) You act like this kid and mom are being sued because they downloaded a shitty copy of "Enter Sandman" and Metallica got mad and stuck the record company on them. Maybe the kid had the entire MCA music collection on his hard drive.

I think $150,000 sounds steep, but I think the mom sounds just as full of shit as the record company. If it is just 1 song, please correct me. I admit I haven't read up much on the case because like Jon I don't justify stealing via computer just because it easier than stealing from Best Buy or Walmart.

So you've broken a law. You deserve to spend at least 1 year in jail, plus community service. After all, what you did put more lives in danger than downloading songs.

Personal experience says the vast majority of speeders are driving luxury vehicles, so that would have a very interesting effect on this country. Let's try it! ;)

Then she got lucky. Why didn't you offer to bring your statistical expertise to the court to help the RIAA?


Maybe, but where is the evidence?


If the RIAA is a sleazebag, why is it wrong to act like one when they are coming after you?

Not totally. They are doing it under the guise of a legal organization. Of course, if their claims had merits, they should be winning these cases, right?

Yeah, I made this reply before I read yours JIMGA - thus the post. When I read your longer post, I did respond to the points in question once you clarified.

just so everyone has the proper perspective, JIMG is a die hard Republican. So I implore you to examine his views and file them properly into where those views line up...Left or Right? Just something to think about. :)

Everyone who tries to justify file sharing has completely missed the point of these cases. The case is not about whether or not the free-exchange of music is good for society or not. The RIAA represents those who own the music. The music companies can do whatever they want with the music and everyone has to play by whatever rules they set. If you don’t like the rules, you have the right to not listen to their music. You do not have the right to steal their music.

And lastly why do the music companies own the music - because the musicians VOLUNTARILY gave up their rights in exchange for money.

Well I am a die hard liberal, and I think the RIAA is well within their rights to sue people who steal music from them. Judging by the number of people who continue to steal music, the RIAA has not been strong enough in their pursuits.

HEY JIMG

I thought you said that you would agree to stop posting here if I did. I agreed to your terms - my last post was on 9/21! But we now can all see that you are full of HOT AIR and that your word means nothing. I guess for all of that jackbooted, kill 'em all, law-and-order crap that you spout, you won't even honor your word. How feeble is that?

Thank you for proving that you're a fraud.

Boy, you need a beat down. Fools dont get respect no matter how old they are. You think because you have a million posts that your better than someone? I've been a member just as long, I just haven't had as much bullshit to say. I'll tell YOU what, if I met you and you spewed your bullshit I think you'd get a backhand to the mouth.

my nipples are perking up at this latest display. this thread needs more cursing.

You posted essentially what I wanted to say...

This is all going to get muddled in the specific merits of this case and the debates going on with JiMG right now..

But.. anyone who tries to defend the right to d/l music for without compensating the appropriate people is way of base imo...

How they should be policed/punished can be up for debate, but try to argue that it is 'ok' is just absurd...

The only way I would be able to rationalise it would be if I want to download some items that the record company has made unavailable. If I contacted them and they refused to sell it to me, I would not feel bad about acquiring it any way I could. They get just as much, in terms of royalties, from me if I somehow get it for "free" or from someone else as a used copy.

So what do you guys think of the legality of sites like http://allofmp3.com which does pay royalties to artists but costs only 10 cents per song or so? For example, a cd costs about 1.50 or so. It's a russian site but I think the a high percentage of its users are americans.

It's legal there, due to a loophole in the Russian Law. Dunno (and no one really does) the legality here in the States.

Okay, so perhaps it wasn't a lack of reading comprehension combined with stupidity, but moreso laziness combined with stupidity.

You took at face value the journalistic writeup without reading the available and linked court transcript from a followup post.

And, of course, your quoted statement refers to the finding of the court, not the argued position of the mother.

Fuck this fucking shit. Cocksuckers need to shit on the fucking assholes who fuck the cunt downloaders. Goddam pussy ball-lickers can fucking fist the fuck out of the twat-sweating record companies. Motherfucking dickless shit-smelling fucks can also stop blowing their jizz on their titties for all I care.

This thread is funny in a sad way. Reminds of the Family Guy eposide where the Fox execs break into Peter's house and shoot apart his VCR because he didn't have the written consent of FOX, but did have the NFL consent.

i just ejaculated in my pants. well done soldier.

And I think it'd be the last mistake you ever made.

It would have to be a mistake before it could be the last one, Jon.

Oooh death threats from an old man. Doesn't really scare me. However, I don't think Skydog allows death threats on his board does he?

Big talk from a little man who own words mean nothing. Gutless punk.

Wow. There is nothing more exciting than tough keyboard talk.

Coming way too late on this one, but I think this is the bed the RIAA got themselves into. They themselves promoted the idea of the music being cheap with their wholesale agreements with Columbia House and BMG. When music is promoted as "12 albums for a penny", it put the psychological seed that says it is basically free anyway.

As Abraham Lincoln once said "the best way to get a bad law overturned is to start the rigorous enforcement of it" (paraphrased). The backlash against the RIAA has been great, due to their overzealous pursuit.

Yeah.. this thread ran downhill right off the cliff into the ol catcus plants, didn't it?

Word.

THAT WAS FUCKING HILARIOUS!!!!!!!!!! I JUST LAUGHED SO DAMN HARD!!

After reading part of this, I really can't believe y'all are still bothering conversing with Jga. I mean really. With the things coming off his keyboard, you would think he was a talk radio guy going for ratings, or something.

I stopped awhile back.

Fair enough but I havnt seen you be so violent in your statements or threatening, some would say even scary. Ill take a you over a JIMG any day based on psychology alone.

What he said. Sometimes I think he pictures himself as sort of an internet Rush, only harsher and without all the meds.

This thread is now about funny pwn3d pictures.

Actually, the real issue is that intellectual property is owned by the creator of that property and the owner of that property has the sole right to decide who can be granted residual (i.e. copy) ownership. IP creators lease that right to publishers and recording companies with the contracted understanding that the distributor will abide by their wishes (the IP creator's wishes being reflected in the publishing/recording contract). Unless the IP creator says that downloading is okay, then it isn't. It is stealing rights from that IP creator.

Downloading free shit may be good for society, but it isn't good for the IP creator unless the IP creator agrees to give their shit away for free. Arguably, downloading shit for free is actually good for the IP creator in the long run, but bottom line, the IP creator is the one who has the *right* to decide how they're going to manage their property (intellectual or otherwise).

Check out Cory Doctorow for someone who is having smashing success giving his shit away for free (www.craphound.com). Which is to say that as an IP creator, I don't mind giving away free shit at all. I think giving away free shit is an outstanding business model for long term success, but I don't have the right to deprive other IP creators of that right if they don't want to give it up.

dola...

It occurs to me that if downloading music IP for free is okay, then it would also be okay for someone to post a link or set up a website to distribute hacked executables of FOF so those who might want it but don't have the money or just don't want to part with the money could get it for free. I mean, if free IP is good for society and downloading IP isn't theft, no one is actually getting hurt -- certainly not Solecismic, who would benefit from the increased exposure of his product to folks who might not otherwise have been aware of it.

Right?

You are missing a very crucial point. If all computer programs were suddenly made free to trade at will over the Internet, most computer programs would fail to get written in the first place. That would be bad not only for the bottom line of the programmers, but also for the consumer. There would still be good programs out there (OpenOffice comes to mind), but it would be an overall negative effect. Big motion pictures are the same way. If they were allowed to be freely traded on the Internet, the movies wouldn't make any money, and they wouldn't be made, because nobody is going to spend $50 million and a year of their time making something to give out for free.

But what about music? If music were made to be free all of a sudden, would music stop being produced? Of course not! Music is so easy and cheap to make, especially with today's technology, that there would still be a huge amount of music out there. People are creative, and just as they create art and write blogs, they will produce music. In fact, you can argue that without the huge marketing machines that are driven by profit, that there would be a GREATER diversity of music. You see that already with tiny bands getting their music out over P2P programs.

Think of the effort needed to produce Madden 2006, or Jurassic Park, and then compare it to the effort needed to produce the latest Kelly Clarkson song. It's not even comparable.

But I'm not talking about Madden 2006. I'm talking about FOF -- a one man product. I spent a year writing my last novel in my spare time. Jim could just have easily spent a year coding the latest iteration of FOF in his spare time while working full time elsewhere. By that logic, small fish developers/writers/musicians shouldn't be able to squawk when someone else decides to give their IP away for free, because they're benefitting in the long run.

Again, this isn't to say that think the Free Shit Distribution Model (FSDM from here on out) is a bad choice -- it's worked for Cory Doctorow and it seems to be working for Shaun Sullivan and Puresim -- I'm just saying that it should be the IP creator's choice and not the choice of some dickwad kid abusing mom and dad's broadband connection.

You have got to be kidding me.

Who are you to judge what is difficult to produce and what isn't? Or why that even matters. Who are you to decide what is best for someone else's intellectual property?

One's perception (real or imagined or yanked out of their ass) about how "difficult" it is to produce intellectual property has absolutely no bearing on the creator's right to control how said IP is disseminated.

^^ What Subby said ^^

SI

Actually, I don't have any problem at all with what the judge said here. It isn't quite as much of an endorsement or condemnation as Fozzie may think it is either. Simply put, if you are sued, or sue someone else, the court dictates how those issues are to be resolved. If there is to be arbitration/mediation, as is now often required by some courts, then it has to be done by court appointed or sanctioned parties. You can't sue someone, and then think the court is going to allow you to resolve the matter through your very own arbitration system.

I'm all in with the mother and 13 year old though.

I've read maybe three posts in this thread, so I hope I haven't missed too much before I responded.

You are both drawing the wrong conclusions from what I said, only Subby does it in a more spectacular, more rude way. The point isn't to decide what is difficult to produce or not, the point is to decide what would be made anyway. The difficulty of producing it is merely a facet of what determines what would be made. So it isn't a matter of determining the cut-off for difficulty level, it is a matter of weighing the benefits of everyone having access to something compared to the costs of some things not being produced. In the case of computer programs, I don't think there is any argument that negative costs outweigh the positive benefits. FOF probably could have been produced for the love of it, but it isn't likely. And there is no doubt that programs like Photoshop, Madden, etc, would never be produced.

IP laws were put into effect to benefit the consumers, not to protect anyone's profits. IP laws are in place because without them, nobody would develop content, which would be bad for the consumer. Twenty years ago, music had to be protected because of the large cost involved with recording the music, etching it onto records, shipping it out to stores, etc. Now a song can be recorded directly onto a computer, uploaded to a server, and copied a million times at a bare minimum of expense. The landscape of the industry has changed. And let's also not forget that musicians can still make a great deal of money by playing live events, it isn't like their talent wouldn't be worth anything. It is the music executives and distribution network that loses out.

Wow, this thread actually got back on track.

(And Drake is 100% correct, of course. The people who create something should get to decide how much if anything to charge for it. The rest of us don't get to take it for free and then shrug our shoulders and mutter about how the landscape has changed. We get to decide if the product is worth enough for us to pay the asking price, but we don't get to just take it if we decide we want it free.)

Uniformed schmoe question:

Can't the parties concerned with "stealing" create a medium that prevents it?

Probably impossible.

I think we disagree fundamentally, MrB. I'm still of the opinion that IP laws were put into effect to protect the right of production and distribution, not those of the consumer. Thus "copy" "right" is a statement of who has been granted the right to copy a piece of IP (or who has the right to lend those distribution & production rights to others) and who hasn't.

I enjoy this discussion every time we have it, but I don't think we're ever going to be able to do anything but agree to disagree. I suppose the oddest part is that I personally tend to agree with you in theory about the wisdom of FSDM (both culturally and financially), but in my eyes, the IP creator's rights always trump the rights of the consumer (especially one who isn't paying).

I think I understand what you want to say here -- but I disagree with it. Patents, trademarks, copyrights, and other protections for inventors or creators are clearly designed to protect profits. Yes, it may be argued that the ultimate goal is (or may have been) to encourage said invention and production, but you can't dismiss the profit motive from being central to all of this -- it's a system of incentives, and the incentive is profit. You can't just remove that essential link in the chain and suggest that it doesn't mater because the real goal was continued supply.

Not even level 164 bit super high def major badass encrytion? Or something?

Didn't you ever watch the movie Mercury Rising when it's on USA or something?

Have we been able to come up with stores that people can't steal from?

SI

I'm just saying...seems like there could be a way besides this nickel and dime, ham and egg half hearted effort if it was really a big deal.

And let's take that a step further. If someone had invented a foolproof way for stores to be created where nothing could be stolen, but, say Wal-Mart figures it's cheaper to go with the old model (ie they lose $1M per year in shoplifted merchandise but the method costs $10M) than the new, do you still not prosecute someone who steals from them because stealing is still illegal?

SI

I've got to raise the bullshit flag on this one. IP laws were put into effect to protect the owner of the IP. The benefit to the comsumers - the fact that there is something to consume - is a secondary benefit.

If the fishing tackle is sitting right out front without a sole within 500 yards I say take the fishing tackle.

Rude? Please. I was practically frenching you I was so polite.

Intellectual property laws exist to protect the creator of said intellectual property. Distilled to their essence, they allow the creator to determine what happens to his or her property. Not you. Not me. They have nothing to do with the consumer other than limiting the freedom they can exercise with result to someone else's property.

Just because a musician can make money playing a song live does not mean they rescind any rights to the songs they own. And if an up and coming band chooses to release their music for free, that is their right.

I don't disagree with you at all about the landscape of music changing - I just don't think that it has any impact on whether a musician has to give away their art, just because it is easy to do.

It just seems like you building a strawman with the whole cost of production and distribution argument.

(w00t, I finally got to use that term!)

If it can be heard by the ear, or seen by the eye, it can be copied.

If it can be read by Joe Average's Computer. It can be broken.

That's not going to change for a very long time.

And there's nobody in this thread who says, "Yes, stealing from the RIAA is right" Don't try to spin that we're not. Just that the RIAA's response has been so hamhanded and stupid (remember them filing a DMCA Complaint UNDER OATH, UNDER PENALTIES OF PERJURY, that someone was sharing Usher songs when it turned out it was Dr. Usher's class tapes?), and flat out lying, that people are taking enjoyment out of them looking like morons.

So get over it people. Use that to your advantage.

exactly, speeding is much MORE serious. You do realize that car accidents are the number (1 or 2) killer of people today right? I think all people who speed should be sentenced for life. :rolleyes:

Oh, I agree with you completely. The RIAA not only made the wrong decision about how to handle illegal file sharing in the first place, they've continued to make the wrong decision (as well as making the whole issue a great deal worse in the process). Someone really needs to tap the head of their enforcement division on the forehead with a frying pan until s/he gets a clue. Alienating one's consumer base is never a sound business decision.

(This applies to several people's posts, but I'm just quoting this one because it is the most direct)

Take a look at the US Constitution:

Right there is the impetus for all copyright law in the United States. The reason is "to promote the progress of science and useful arts", not to protect the creator, not to protect the profits of the distribution network. It has been upheld by the courts, for example:

FWIW, it's maybe 5 or 6, not 1 or 2. Heart Disease is #1, Cancer is #2, Stroke is #3, Chronic lower respiratory diseases is #4 and "Accidents" is #5, but that includes all accidents, not just motor vehicle accidents. (http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/lcod.htm).

But, Motor Vehicle accidents are the #1 killer in people aged 15-24.

That first part I quoted is completely wrong, as I explained in a previous post.

As for the strawman, what are you talking about? Can you explain that a little more?

That copyright infringement or intellectual property has anything to do with whether said property is easier or cheaper to produce than something else. Your argument that a piece of software has more protection than a Kelly Clarkson cd because it is easy to produce and distribute has no bearing on the issue at hand.

It's all about who owns the property and their right to do with it how they see fit.

I still disagee with you. IP laws are in place to protect the owners of IP. The duration of these laws is limited for the good of the public.

I'm not going to rehash Quik's post about protecting the ability to profit being a central link in this chain that ultimately results in the public good.

That said, I'd change your third citation to something that isn't a fair use case. That's a whole 'nother can of worms. :)

Why not, for nonrivalrous goods? Have you ever taken a physics course? Did you use E-mc^2? Did you get permission from Einstein to use his formula? Of course not, because his ideas were never copyrighted, because to do so would be against the advancement of science, so the government never made laws making it available to be copyrighted.

At one point, there was a benefit to copyrighting music. It cost money to record it and put it on a phonograph and ship that phonograph across the country. Those phonographs were rivalrous, i.e. if someone owned a particular phonograph someone else couldn't own that same physical object as well. But cover bands could still play it, you could still hum it, etc, and nobody could tell you you couldn't. The information, the nonrivalrous good, was always free to use.

What evidence do you have to place up against the US Constitution and the US justice system?

I'm not saying they are wrong. I'm saying you are reading it wrong. Copyrights and patents have always existed to protect the inventor/creator so they can adequately profit off of their creations. The limits to these copyrights/patents exist for the good of humanity so people can springboard off of the works of others.

I never said anything about CD's. CD's are rivalrous goods, that fall under real property. Secondly, ease of production is not the bottom line, as I have explained previously. The bottom line is the content's ability to be produced in the absence of profit. And ease of production definitely comes into that. Consider microsoft's calculator. Would they ever charge for that? Of course not, because someone could easily make a free one.

I ask again, what evidence do you have that you are correct? There is no mention at all in the Constitution about profiting from their discoveries, just mention of the advancement of science and the arts.

...as shown by the fact that nobody ever got in trouble for bringing a tape recorder to a concert or a video camera to a movie theater. We can sing a song or act out a movie...we can't replay others singing a song or acting out a movie without their permission.

Except for Disney, who keeps sponsoring a new amendment whenever Mickey Mouse gets close to the copyright ending, to push it back, for example. They want the right to forever make money off their copyrights (most of which they didn't even create, but stole from fairly tales)

I have the same evidence that you do. I read everything you quoted and I believe it supports my position. The court first court ruling you showed made important (in my reading of the finding), that the limit of the rights for the good of society, not the rights themselves.

Reading your facts, I get a different interpretation.

dola

I'd be willing to see in informal poll happen to see which of us has the common interpretation. Mine could be wrong.

This is a related, but seperate discussion. I have no problem seeing Mickey fall into the realm of public domain.

People that bring tape recorders or video cameras to movie theaters intend to sell the information, which is making money off of another's work. Furthermore, those are private places that can enforce their own rules of what to bring in. We can also replay a movie whenever we want, or do you not own a VCR?

Are you a big "conventional wisdom" fan? I recommend Freakonomics, it's an eye-opener.

Are you serious here? "granted in order to serve the public interest in promoting the creation and dissemination of new works." That's pretty much as clear cut in favor of my argument as can be, since my argument is that the rights are granted in order to serve the public interest in promoting the creation and dissemination of new works. Nowhere does it mention anything about it being for the creators profit, which is what I understand your view to be. Were you joking, or am I misunderstanding your view?

If that was the case, people would only get in trouble post-transaction. Otherwise you are dealing with thought-crime.


Purchase of the tape/DVD/CD constitutes permission to replay. It is part of the purchase contract. I believe courts have already declared time-shifting part of fair-use. I don't know what the legalities are for recording something and then keeping it forever, but I also can't recall it ever being challenged in court.

Nope. Facts are not copyrightable.

http://www.bitlaw.com/source/cases/copyright/nba.html

I don't think you can be arrested for taping a movie, just thrown out of the theater. And like I said, as private entities theaters are free to follow their own rules.

I was't talking about the purchase of rivalrous goods, I was talking about taping something off the TV as nonrivalrous. And the courts have ruled in favor of VCR's.

Substitute "social psychology" and "game theory" in there then, it's all the same concept.

No I'm not, I just didn't think it made sense for the two of us to argue about which interpretation was correct. If you say I am reading something wrong, I'll challenge you. If everybody says I am reading something wrong, I'll challenge myself.

Sure, we get back to fair use here. If you are broadcasting something over the air, or across a cable that I pay for, I have the right to receive that transmission. Permission is given from the IP holder to the broadcast entity via their purchase contract. VCRs are an acceptable way of receiving a broadcast. I guess I'm not really sure what the point of this tangent is.

Then you didn't see the story about the folks who were arrested for videotaping a movie? (agreed, they had larcenous intent, but still)

It is against Federal law.

I agree, but again, it ties back into my original point. A lot of people want to see these folks get smacked around because of their arrogance, that the rules apply to Joe Average, but it doesn't to a Disney or an RIAA member or other such companies.

For example.. the Price Fixing settlement that the RIAA had stated that amongst other things, they would donate cd's to libraries. Fair and worthy right?

Not when it turned to a massive CD-Dump that ended up with some libraries receiving receiving double digit copies of things like Whitney Houston's rendition of the national anthem. In other words, the music labels just thumbed their noses at the letter and the spirit of their settlement.

As I said, Schadenfrude. Anything that kicks those bastards in the jimmies is ok by me. Jon might and probably does think I'm wrong for it, but it's plain and simple. Whatever fucks them over (up to a point), is just desserts.

I'm still hazy about how a court ruling that says exactly what my interpretation . And I am still looking for any evidence at all that profits are the main intent of IP laws.

How do you think fair use came about? As a means to advance science and art by sampling copyrighted material. If it was all about profit, as you contend, then the courts would have ruled that an artist would have to pay for any kind of sampling of another artist, or that a person would have to pay to reproduce something, such as taping on a VCR. But that is not the case, the court has consistently ruled for the advancement of science and the arts, because that is exactly what it says in the Constitution. There really is no argument here, it's very clear cut.

I'll change what I said slightly: It's not the fact that the person will have a copy of the movie that congress is worried about, it's the fact that this person will be going out and selling the movie. And even if he is just going to distribute it on the Internet, I've mentioned how movies are not the same as music when you are comparing their likelihood to be made if there is no profit incentive.

Ummm...

Where to begin, where to begin?

Do I go the "what about people that cannot afford a computer?" route?

Do I go the "so should all writing (newspapers, novels, penthouse letters, etc) be free?" route?

Do I go the "so should all pieces of artwork which are actually MUCH cheaper to make than any music be free and able to be copied and distributed route?"

Do I go the "you're an idiot who just wants to justify stealing." route?



And those are only some of the many choices... advice? which should I pick?

:rolleyes:

What about them? More of them have access to a computer than get recording contracts, so the point is moot.

Most newspapers are free on the Internet, just like I am saying music should be, so that kind of hurts your argument. Novels, as I explained probably a dozen times if you had bothered to read the entire thread, are not music, they take a lot more time to write and I imagine that quality would drop off severely if there was no profit incentive. Furthermore, most people still like to read physical books, which is a rivalrous good.

Art is rivalrous! Please, read the whole thread before replying.

Please give an intelligent response next time before calling someone an idiot. You didn't refute a single one of my points, then went for ad hominem attacks. Let me help you out:

My premises:
1) IP laws are in effect to help the consumer
2) The consumer is helped more by free music distribution
My conclusion:
1) Free music distribution should be legal

To attack that you must argue one of the following:
1) IP are not designed to help the consumer but rather the profits of the creator (which is false just be glancing at the Constitution)
2) The consumer is hurt by having free music distribution (so far nobody has attempted to refute this, I don't think)

Please show me where in the constitution it shows that IP is designed to help the consumer.

Thanks!

This was never a problem with cassette tapes.

Of course the Platonic consumer is helped by free music distribution (except for the damage done to his soul when this free music distribution is done illegally). I don't really want to get into this, but your argument is really silly.

READ THE THREAD!


Not "to promote the profits of scientists and artists", but "to promote the progress of science and the useful arts".

Music is nonrivalrous only if its creator/owner wants it to be so. They get to make that decision. Not us. Just like the Washington Post gets to control the information they reproduce on their web site. You know - the articles that have copyrights at the bottom of each page.

Your continued insistence that intellectual property laws exist to protect just the consumer ignore years and years of copyright and trademark law.

Consider free movies for anyone. An initial benefit to the consumer. But then, movies stop being made because there is no money in it, because nobody will spend $100million of their own money just to make a movie. Now all you have are crappy films. A net negative for the consumer, because even though movies are free, there aren't any movies.

But the same can't be said for music. People will not stop making music. Not only can they still get rich from plaing concerts, but the ease in which a song can be produced will keep a healthy supply of new songs on the marketplace.

This kind of calculus is done every time an IP law is considered. It's not "silly" by any stretch of the imagination.