When Good Rants Go Bad

I have been working on a retort to "What About The Artist, Stupid?" since I first read it via diepunyhumans. Most importantly before we start, I do not speak for EFF in any way. I no longer work for EFF. These thoughts, opinions and statements are my own.

I made sure my EFF buddies heard about it and Ren gave a nice reply. Mr Ellis has already left a lengthy and thoughtful reply. I'm still working on mine. It's not a "You spoke ill of EFF now you die" reply either. Mr Ellis makes a number of good points about creative control, making money, and how the system is broken. But one thing that I think should be addressed is that P2P is a tree in the forest and we don't want to loose site of the big picture.

EFF is fighting "for" P2P because they understand that when you make general-use technology illegal you are going down the wrong road. EFF is not fighting "against" artists or "against" copyright. Those are ludicrous positions to attribute to EFF. EFF has never said they have a "perfect plan" to solve the problems surrounding the music industry. They have offered up a number of ideas, all which have real world flaws.

It's perfectly reasonable for Mr Ellis to worry about his own direct interests before anyone else. He would be unwise not to do so. But Mr Ellis cannot expect EFF to put his interests at the front of the efforts either.