January 06, 2005
Gates Plays the Red Card

Bill Gates says:

There are some new modern-day sort of communists who want to get rid of the incentive for musicians and moviemakers and software makers under various guises.

Dan Gillmor nails him:

The purity of this lie is remarkable. Even the most ardent of the free-software folks are not trying to remove the incentive to be creative. They believe in a different kind of incentive, just not the mercenary one that motivates Bill Gates.
Posted by mitch@osafoundation.org at January 06, 2005 04:26 PM
Comments

I think the CC folk (and related) need to stop playing the victim here.

If they spent more time explaining how CC (and related licenses) empowers the creator by extending their rights and giving them more flexibility of how their content is used, then this would be less of an issue.

Unless of course the CC crowd actually has thoughts about limiting the power of the creator in favor of the community - in which case Gates is dead right.

I am pretty sure it's the former, but until everyone gets behind that I will reserve judgement and not blame the powers that be for getting it wrong.

Posted by: blaze [TypeKey Profile Page] at January 6, 2005 05:02 PM

hmmm, I don't know. That mesh thing for poor countries that Gates talks about --- sounds a bit commie and anti-capitalist to me. I mean, doesn't that take away incentives for the communications companies there?

Posted by: voracity [TypeKey Profile Page] at January 6, 2005 06:04 PM

The comment sounds like a paradox to me. What's the difference between everyone working for the Government or everyone working for the Company.

Posted by: James at January 7, 2005 02:04 PM

Mr. Gillmor's argument is specious. Far be it for me to defend Bill Gates, but I'd like to know just what this different incentive is he's talking about. Perhaps he's suggesting that in lieu of money musicians can use this "different incentive" instead. Is he suggesting that musicians pay their bills with, say, glass beads? Hey, it worked for the Dutch when they bought Manhattan from the Indians. Maybe it could fly today.

He seems to be suggesting that not paying for music is somehow a nobler pursuit than making a living from the sale of music. I'd like to know why. How is a music pirate's desire to have music for free a higher calling than a musician trying to make a living from from selling his or her music? Is it because musicans often use big, evil record companies to do it? Are the people who work at these companies as unworthy of making a living from what they do as he seems to think musicians are? If so, I'd like to know why.

Posted by: popnfresh [TypeKey Profile Page] at January 13, 2005 05:28 PM

Mr. Gillmor is suggesting that good musicians (and some bad ones, no doubt) make music for reasons utterly orthogonal to paying the bills. He's right, but maybe you have to be a musician to understand that.

Posted by: misuba [TypeKey Profile Page] at January 17, 2005 09:28 PM