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Creativity is stifled any time copyright interests get involved. The whole point of copyright is to leverage control into profit. Control over other people, generally. The derivative works doctrine in particular is exerting control over the creativity of others in an effort to turn a profit. That's the stifling of creativity right there. Sample-based creation in particular has suffered from this.

It's not the buy button that offends. It's taking a democritizing platfom and turning it into an elitist one where only the blessed can publish that offends. I have no wish to be reduced to a person whose only permitted role in my own culture is to open my wallet. And for my presumption to create without asking permission and paying lots of money first, I have years in jail hanging over my head.

That's here. That's now. That's reality. With that in mind, I cannot accept the idea that if it pays artists it must be good.

This may come as a shock to you, but I don't object to artists being paid. I do object to some of the things artists call for in the interests of being paid. DRM, for instance, is not acceptable to me. Nor are licenses for tiny, tiny samples where one person gets to control the creativity of another.

People aren't hostile to paying artists. People just aren't always willing to pay artists what artists think they deserve while engaging on terms the artist has selected. That's just like any other business where you have to go where the customers are and offer them what they want if you want to make sales. You can try and hawk expensive dehumidifiers in the Empty Quarter, but you don't get to blame the world for your inability to sell any.

I'm not trolling. I just have this little thing where I dislike the would-be tin-pot dictators of the copyright industry.



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