Copyright is what stops someone from copy+pasting a book that took years to write, then selling it $1 cheaper than the original author on Amazon or whatever and making a margin 1 million percent higher than the original author.
Imagine a society without copyright… only physically intensive jobs could make money because everything else would be pirated, ripped-off or free. Thus, only those who are financially independent could afford to publish. Because the world really needs more rich class propaganda…
How many times were hugely popular books rejected before a publisher decided they were worthy?
Copyright far more protects the wealthy than the good. They don't need to sell your book, they just need to own the book that people are buying right now. Giving your book a chance to sell would dectract from those sales.
If there were no copyright anyone trying to sell the book $1 cheaper would be undercut by someone selling $1 cheaper them them, and so on. The financial incentive to do that goes away. People then choose to distribute based on different incentives, like the fact that they have seen something worthy that others should see. We have almost completely lost that today because the financial incentive doesn't care what it is as long as you buy it. That might lead to a world dominated by an optimisation for whatever it takes to get you engaged, or worse, addicted. That world might really suck.
There needs to be a way to support the creation of art. Copyright lets a few corporations decide the subset of available art is seen enough and available to pay for (in the hope that maybe some of the patment gets to the creator). It is not a system that works in the modern world.
Great, that way is called copyright. The author has the right to control who has the rights to distribute their work, and can require compensation in exchange for that right; what economists refer to as "selling".
If money is the only incentive, then it's not a product of artistic work.
Also current copyright laws only exists to fulfill the constitutional mandate to promote the progress of science and useful arts. There are a lot of alternative ways to fulfill that mandate that don't include a lot of the baggage we have presently in copyright law which is now slowing down progress.
>If money is the only incentive, then it's not a product of artistic work.
This is just bullshit and no one said it's the only incentive.
> There are a lot of alternative ways to fulfill that mandate that don't include a lot of the baggage we have presently in copyright law which is now slowing down progress.
Copyright doesn't actually stop me from pirating a book or an mp3 right now. Heck, I'll just download a book right now. Bam. Done. Some things are so difficult to keep from being pirated, such a photographs, that saying the copyright system protects photographers strikes me as a bit silly. It does protect some commercial photographers if a magazine wants to sell their photo sometimes, but that's a very very small slice of all the photos in copyright that are being shared online right now.
Also there are other systems that might protect an author's financials. Off the top of my head I imagine you could do a netflix model where every citizen pays some taxes to consume intellectual property like a utility. Then the goverment finds a way to measure what is being consumed and gives each author a share based on the rate of consumption. In fact the "intellegence is a ultility" ramblings of Sam Altmen sort-of point in this direction. But that's just one idea thought up early in the morning when its too hot to sleep properly. I'm sure there are many others.
> It does protect some commercial photographers if a magazine wants to sell their photo sometimes, but that's a very very small slice of all the photos in copyright that are being shared online right now.
That is a very small slice thanks to copyrights. Without copyrights then corporations stealing from the small guy like this would be the majority of it.
It's funny because copyright only benefits the rich now. Record labels hold all the copyright to songs, same with publishers for books, Disney made sure it lasts over a hundred years. The days of copyright being held by individuals in any real sense is long gone.
Right, it's about incentivising intellectual work. While I have big issues with the copyright system, like all the extensions lobbied for by Disney and friends, it did enable a lot of good work to happen.
How do we know that when we don't have a copy of the world without this regime? How much more and greater works could have been produced without such a repressive system?
A really successful work becomes part of the culture, and remixing, derivatives and other modes of integrating cultural artifacts are prohibited. Why should we allow corporations to own our culture?
Yeah, I can't AB test against a world without copyright at all, but I think there's sufficient evidence to believe that a lot of stuff would never have gotten done without copyright to ensure it could be done gainfully.
The importance of striking a balance between incentivising creation and enriching culture was why the original copyright term was dramatically shorter. The modern term of owners life + 80 years or whatever it is, is clearly ridiculous. 20 years before entering public domain seems pretty reasonable.
There's unfortunately also some pressure against people using legitimate public domain works. E.g. youtubers getting copyright strikes for playing public domain music because it's too similar to a specific copyrighted recording.
Isn't most creative work synthesis rather than unique whole-cloth creation? Look at what happens with software when it is open sourced and allowed to be remixed freely. Are we better or worse off because of it?
There's nothing that prevents people from remixing things that are not copyrighted and create something amazing that others are interested in or of cultural value.
With open source, I should note, its remixing is in fact governed by copyright.
I think the idea is if "AI" can solve math proofs that humans haven't for a century then if "AI" freestyles stolen art and literature then it might create something as good if not better because of resources and processing power
There might be something to that logic but art and literature doesn't obey rules like math and copyright exists to protect creators
Quite rich coming from a creator apparently, only certain creations are deemed worthy by you, seems like it invalidates your entire stance on the sanctity of art that all these pro-copyright people seem to hold.
You're speaking to the generation of pirates. What? Suddenly everyone is hanging up their high seas hat to capture the virtue signals of current sentiment?
I would be fine with abandoning copyright ... If it is done for everyone equally, and not just tech giants and VC money businesses get a free pass, while everyone else still has to follow the copyright laws. Lets go ahead and usher in an age of free information and experiencing all forms of human expression for everyone. But lets also come up with a way, to compensate our creative minds and our educators and artists. How about that UBI? We stand much to gain as humanity.
This. Copyright is a flawed system. There can be alternatives that allow more than 1 player to play and not create monopolies.
For example. I invent a new method of power washing. I start a power washing business using new tech. I file the tech for patent and copyright-equivalent use. This is then made available to other power wash companies that wish to use the tech and be certified in it so long as a small portion of their revenue goes back to the inventor for a set amount per volume, or something similar of a metric that has a cutoff after a point.
This will breed new industries, create new jobs, introduce new innovations, and allow the markets to move on from being strangled by one giant corporation.
Never really understood how libertarians expect to have someone making guns for their fiefdoms when there is no one to enforce property rights for said gun elements and manufactories.
Libertarianism is not a philosophy. It's selfishness taken to extremes and trying to find ways to justify it at a societal level. The only reason we're the top species is because we're ultra social and have culture, which is inherently a social trait (don't eat those red berries, they're poisonous). Libertarianism want all the benefits of working together with no actual thought into how that working together happens in real life, including punishment for bad behavior.
I guess they presume it requires on the good will of everyone to live peacefully without violating (non-existent) property laws over, say, robbing you in your sleep.
Copyright is what stops someone from copy+pasting a book that took years to write, then selling it $1 cheaper than the original author on Amazon or whatever and making a margin 1 million percent higher than the original author.
Imagine a society without copyright… only physically intensive jobs could make money because everything else would be pirated, ripped-off or free. Thus, only those who are financially independent could afford to publish. Because the world really needs more rich class propaganda…
How many times were hugely popular books rejected before a publisher decided they were worthy?
Copyright far more protects the wealthy than the good. They don't need to sell your book, they just need to own the book that people are buying right now. Giving your book a chance to sell would dectract from those sales.
If there were no copyright anyone trying to sell the book $1 cheaper would be undercut by someone selling $1 cheaper them them, and so on. The financial incentive to do that goes away. People then choose to distribute based on different incentives, like the fact that they have seen something worthy that others should see. We have almost completely lost that today because the financial incentive doesn't care what it is as long as you buy it. That might lead to a world dominated by an optimisation for whatever it takes to get you engaged, or worse, addicted. That world might really suck.
There needs to be a way to support the creation of art. Copyright lets a few corporations decide the subset of available art is seen enough and available to pay for (in the hope that maybe some of the patment gets to the creator). It is not a system that works in the modern world.
Well, there is nothing to distribute if the author is not incentivized to write... which you seemed to skip past.
Indeed, perhaps I should have said
There needs to be a way to support the creation of art.
Great, that way is called copyright. The author has the right to control who has the rights to distribute their work, and can require compensation in exchange for that right; what economists refer to as "selling".
People have been paid artists before copyright even existed, what some might call patronage.
And?
Therefore copyright is not necessary.
That's a big leap
>There needs to be a way to support the creation of art.
Yeah, it's called "copyright."
If money is the only incentive, then it's not a product of artistic work.
Also current copyright laws only exists to fulfill the constitutional mandate to promote the progress of science and useful arts. There are a lot of alternative ways to fulfill that mandate that don't include a lot of the baggage we have presently in copyright law which is now slowing down progress.
>If money is the only incentive, then it's not a product of artistic work.
This is just bullshit and no one said it's the only incentive.
> There are a lot of alternative ways to fulfill that mandate that don't include a lot of the baggage we have presently in copyright law which is now slowing down progress.
such as??
> Thus, only those who are financially independent could afford to publish. Because the world really needs more rich class propaganda…
Yes, all the rich class propaganda being pushed by open source developers working on software in their free time.
That's oversimplifying things.
Copyright doesn't actually stop me from pirating a book or an mp3 right now. Heck, I'll just download a book right now. Bam. Done. Some things are so difficult to keep from being pirated, such a photographs, that saying the copyright system protects photographers strikes me as a bit silly. It does protect some commercial photographers if a magazine wants to sell their photo sometimes, but that's a very very small slice of all the photos in copyright that are being shared online right now.
Also there are other systems that might protect an author's financials. Off the top of my head I imagine you could do a netflix model where every citizen pays some taxes to consume intellectual property like a utility. Then the goverment finds a way to measure what is being consumed and gives each author a share based on the rate of consumption. In fact the "intellegence is a ultility" ramblings of Sam Altmen sort-of point in this direction. But that's just one idea thought up early in the morning when its too hot to sleep properly. I'm sure there are many others.
> It does protect some commercial photographers if a magazine wants to sell their photo sometimes, but that's a very very small slice of all the photos in copyright that are being shared online right now.
That is a very small slice thanks to copyrights. Without copyrights then corporations stealing from the small guy like this would be the majority of it.
It's funny because copyright only benefits the rich now. Record labels hold all the copyright to songs, same with publishers for books, Disney made sure it lasts over a hundred years. The days of copyright being held by individuals in any real sense is long gone.
Right, it's about incentivising intellectual work. While I have big issues with the copyright system, like all the extensions lobbied for by Disney and friends, it did enable a lot of good work to happen.
> it did enable a lot of good work to happen.
How do we know that when we don't have a copy of the world without this regime? How much more and greater works could have been produced without such a repressive system?
A really successful work becomes part of the culture, and remixing, derivatives and other modes of integrating cultural artifacts are prohibited. Why should we allow corporations to own our culture?
Yeah, I can't AB test against a world without copyright at all, but I think there's sufficient evidence to believe that a lot of stuff would never have gotten done without copyright to ensure it could be done gainfully.
The importance of striking a balance between incentivising creation and enriching culture was why the original copyright term was dramatically shorter. The modern term of owners life + 80 years or whatever it is, is clearly ridiculous. 20 years before entering public domain seems pretty reasonable.
There's unfortunately also some pressure against people using legitimate public domain works. E.g. youtubers getting copyright strikes for playing public domain music because it's too similar to a specific copyrighted recording.
You’re arguing that freely remixing original work will give rise to greatness that’s even better than original work?
Isn't most creative work synthesis rather than unique whole-cloth creation? Look at what happens with software when it is open sourced and allowed to be remixed freely. Are we better or worse off because of it?
There's nothing that prevents people from remixing things that are not copyrighted and create something amazing that others are interested in or of cultural value.
With open source, I should note, its remixing is in fact governed by copyright.
Possibly. Sort of like how Disney remixed basically everything from existing fairy tales for decades then made it so nobody else could.
Yes? I don't understand how this is even a question, this is exactly how it worked throughout human history.
In what way is copyright preventing it today?
I can't make and sell a remix of an existing IP and even in cases of free distribution it can get dicey legally.
I think the idea is if "AI" can solve math proofs that humans haven't for a century then if "AI" freestyles stolen art and literature then it might create something as good if not better because of resources and processing power
There might be something to that logic but art and literature doesn't obey rules like math and copyright exists to protect creators
Go read a few fanfics and tell me you still think that theres added value.
Quite rich coming from a creator apparently, only certain creations are deemed worthy by you, seems like it invalidates your entire stance on the sanctity of art that all these pro-copyright people seem to hold.
I can't tell if this comment is satire or not.
You're speaking to the generation of pirates. What? Suddenly everyone is hanging up their high seas hat to capture the virtue signals of current sentiment?
I would be fine with abandoning copyright ... If it is done for everyone equally, and not just tech giants and VC money businesses get a free pass, while everyone else still has to follow the copyright laws. Lets go ahead and usher in an age of free information and experiencing all forms of human expression for everyone. But lets also come up with a way, to compensate our creative minds and our educators and artists. How about that UBI? We stand much to gain as humanity.
This. Copyright is a flawed system. There can be alternatives that allow more than 1 player to play and not create monopolies.
For example. I invent a new method of power washing. I start a power washing business using new tech. I file the tech for patent and copyright-equivalent use. This is then made available to other power wash companies that wish to use the tech and be certified in it so long as a small portion of their revenue goes back to the inventor for a set amount per volume, or something similar of a metric that has a cutoff after a point.
This will breed new industries, create new jobs, introduce new innovations, and allow the markets to move on from being strangled by one giant corporation.
Isn't that just...patent licensing? But I agree that it should be a forced outcome so everyone can use it rather than waiting a ridiculous 20 years.
This reminds me of this argument with libertarians/ancaps:
A: rich people pay less % in taxes than wage workers, we should close the loopholes
B: but taxes are immoral to begin with
A: ok, but can we do something now about the unequal enforcement? Unrealized gains, tax havens, trusts, fake charities, etc?
B: well a society based on property rights… ackhully you should read this book by Mises/Rothbard/Rand
Never really understood how libertarians expect to have someone making guns for their fiefdoms when there is no one to enforce property rights for said gun elements and manufactories.
Libertarianism is not a philosophy. It's selfishness taken to extremes and trying to find ways to justify it at a societal level. The only reason we're the top species is because we're ultra social and have culture, which is inherently a social trait (don't eat those red berries, they're poisonous). Libertarianism want all the benefits of working together with no actual thought into how that working together happens in real life, including punishment for bad behavior.
Yeah its wrong in very very similar ways to communism.
What very very similar ways would that be?
I guess they presume it requires on the good will of everyone to live peacefully without violating (non-existent) property laws over, say, robbing you in your sleep.
Surprise: the comment above was downvoted in the bastion of libertarianism :-)
https://youtu.be/lh2__MN-FTU?si=LXIaljh__s8fD75l&t=1568
About 3 minutes of video worth watching.