[JohnFen]

> People would argue that it's up to the seller whether they want to make their creations available.

But this gets complicated. I wanted to post a song from a somewhat obscure '80s band on my website and so tracked them down and asked for permission.

One of them (the songwriter) responded to say that the band has never had the rights to the music on that album and, in fact, they don't even have a recording of it themselves. In his words "as far as I'm concerned, you can do whatever you want with that stuff". I posted the song and sent him a high-quality copy of the album it came from.

[joemi]

That's not complicated, though. The artist is not the seller. The artist already sold their rights. Whoever bought the rights is the seller. You might choose to disregard that because the artist said they don't care, but their opinion is meaningless, so it should not be the basis of your argument.

[JohnFen]

I was responding to this: "People would argue that it's up to the seller whether they want to make their creations available."

The use of the phrase "their creations" led to to think that the people being discussed here were the artists, not the rightsholders. Only the artists are the creators.

My argument is that this is complex because the system of legal rights is complex. The people that you think have them are often not the artists. I'm not actually seeing how you have argued against this -- have I misunderstood what you're saying?

[joemi]

I agree with your argument as stated here ("this is complex because the system of legal rights is complex"). I guess your example seemed to me to be an endorsement of relying on the creators opinion and not the rights-holder in cases where they are not the same, and I was arguing against that (assumed?) endorsement. The fact that the creators are not necessarily the sellers is at the heart of a lot of pro-piracy arguments and I've often seen it used as blanket justification for _any_ piracy, even in cases where the rights-holders and creators are the same entities, so I guess I'm a bit sensitive to it.

Side note: I used to co-run a small electronic record label, and almost all of the artists who we released music by were just ourselves (with a few exceptions made for close friends, who retained all rights to their music). Given our small size and low profile, it was shocking to see how quickly some of our releases were pirated. Sometimes albums would hit soulseek after we had only shipped out the first 30 or so CDs (and no MP3s). We weren't in it for the money... it was just a side-activity while we were still in school, and any money made was just funneled back into the label so we could release more music, so fortunately the piracy didn't affect us much as far as we cared. But it was still incredibly surprising.

[JohnFen]

> I guess your example seemed to me to be an endorsement of relying on the creators opinion and not the rights-holder in cases where they are not the same, and I was arguing against that (assumed?) endorsement.

I was not endorsing anything. My intent was to tell an interesting anecdote that illustrated the complexity of rights. Sorry for the confusion.

My personal attitude (not endorsing it, though!) is that the artists are the only people who really count. That's why I contacted them for permission. Beyond the artists, everything is just legalisms and how seriously to take their desires is a legal consideration, not an ethical one. My anecdote does indicate this in action pretty clearly, but it conflates that attitude with the main point I was making (that this stuff isn't simple).

[joemi]

I'm not sure what the difference is between one's personal attitude (voluntarily made public) and one's endorsement. IMO they are one in the same. I only bring this up because you've made the point to say you're not endorsing what you personally believe.

Why would the artists be the only people who really count, when they made an agreement to let the someone else handle the selling? Doesn't that by default mean that what the artist _wanted_ was to let someone else handle the selling?