Dear Congressperson:

If you take my hamburger, I go hungry but if you copy my software, music or movie we can both benefit from them, discuss them and share ideas and experiences which enhance our mutual ownership. This may sound like a bunch of hippy communist bull but it is capitalism in it’s truest form.

It’s as simple as the law of supply and demand. When supply goes up relative to demand, with out artificial influences, such as unnecessary laws, price goes down. We can copy digital works all day long at almost no cost so their supply is essentially limitless. According to this most basic law of economics, in an unencumbered capitalist system, the price of digital works will naturally tend towards zero.

We have been duped into believing that you can steal an idea. What a farce. What a complete and utter wrong turn for humanity. All because we made the mistake of forcing concepts we understand in the physical world, like stealing, on to the relatively new world of digital works where they do not apply. Our society has built an economy around marketing and selling products but we’re still trying to pound that square peg in to a round hole. The natural laws of physical goods simply do not apply to digital works. If we, as an intelligent society, want to maximize the value of our creations then, when it comes to digital works, we must maximize sharing. We must fight for our basic right to share in the limitless possibility of a free world of free digital works, free ideas, free music, free software, free art.

Freedom does not mean that artists are not to be compensated. They must be compensated for the act of creation. Not for sharing the fruits of their labor but for the labor itself. The business model has to change. We cannot sell music or movies like widgets. Artists must sell the act of creating as a service not the results as a product. The music and movie industry has to be turned on its head. There is no denying that it will be painful for some in the short term but it’s better than heading down the dark road of draconian enforcement which is the only end to the path we are currently on.

A free system is more beneficial to creators anyway. On the Internet, there is nothing more valuable than attention and unhindered sharing is the best way to get it. This applies to creators now not in some distant utopian future. For creators today this is the best bet not a vague hope that to win the record industry lottery. Tell these middle who are asking you to artificially prop up an outdated system, “I’m sorry, you had a good run, you made a lot of money but now you must go the way of the wagon wheel maker.”

I am 35 year old software developer. Internet freedoms are extremely important to me and many of my generation. I write and distribute software and my entire livelihood depends on what is ultimately a copyrightable digital work. Yet I believe in free and open sharing. The RIAA and MPAA need to change their tactics if they want to survive. They are wrong not the public. And their billions of dollars do not justify their position.

I will likely vote in the next elections based solely on your stance on issues of Internet privacy and freedom.

I beg you to strongly oppose SOPA and PIPA and any other legislation which attempts to limit freedom on the Internet and instead fight to reverse the damage that has already been done by laws like the DMCA!

Most earnestly your constituent,

Joseph Coffland