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The creeping attempts at legislation are down to the power of what he calls the “copyright monopoly”, and although the US record industry and Hollywood studios view file-sharing sites as theft, and this week succeeded in having the founders of one site, Megaupload.com, charged with racketeering, Falkvinge is clear that it’s no such thing.
“It’s not theft. It’s an infringement on a monopoly. If it was theft and it was property, we wouldn’t need a copyright law, ordinary property laws would suffice.” Nor does he have any truck with the argument that file-sharing hurts art and artists.
“It’s just not true. Musicians earn 114% more since the advent of Napster. The average income per artist has risen 66%, with 28% more artists being able to make a living off their hobby. What is true is that there’s an obsolete middle market of managers. And in a functioning market, they would just disappear.”
But in any case, he says, it’s not about the economy or creativity. “What it boils down to is a privileged elite who’ve had a monopoly on dictating the narrative. And suddenly they’re losing it. We’re at a point where this old corporate industry thinks that, in order to survive, it has to dismantle freedom of speech.”
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