9 ms·

Sorry that this is sarcastic. I've always found it to be a problematic claim that without copyright, patents and other 17th/18th century "intellectual property"

• kedean 11y ago
  Devils advocate, the only reason for that last part is because patent and copyright are only useful at the point where enough money is flowing around that lawyers are involved. Artists definitely care if someone steals their work, but you don't usually hear about that happening because copyright exists. You know all the hubub about certain comedians stealing jokes from other comedians? That's a realm with no copyright/patent equivalent.
  • caf 11y ago
    For all the "hubub", it doesn't seem to have stopped new comedic acts being being written?
    • mdpopescu 11y ago
      Same with the fashion industry, where some people are trying really hard to bring copyright in despite the fact that it's much more profitable without it than the entire media industry.
    • throwawaykf05 11y ago
      Or maybe because they are less able to protect their works, there are fewer people being motivated to participate in the comedy (and as mentioned by sibling comment, fashion) industries? The premise of copyright is not causing but promoting creation of works. Subtle but important distinction. Nobody said there would be no creation without copyright, just that there would be more with it.
      • maehwasu 11y ago
        There's seems to be quite high supplies of both comedy and fashion in today's world. Before imposing a system of copyright to "promote" them, you'd want to be EXTREMELY fucking sure that a) the quality/quantity will go up b) you're fine with massive new amounts of money being siphoned into rent-seeking industries (legal, rights holding companies, etc) c) you don't create side-effects that actually decrease output and/or lower quality
    • LLWM 11y ago
      There certainly aren't many good ones. And even if you don't care about the quality of comedy, any layman can compare the comedy industry to another industry that does have such protections, like, say, film or software, and see a huge gap.
  • hrnnnnnn 11y ago
    Stewart Lee handled this beautifully in his 90's Comedian show when Joe Pasquale stole some of his material. He made a joke Pasquale couldn't steal, which involved, among other things, vomiting into the gaping anus of Christ.
    • maffydub 11y ago
      Really minor nitpick/trivia point: I think Stewart Lee said that Joe Pasquale stole some of Michael Redmond (another comedian)'s material, not Stewart Lee's. Definitely agree that Stewart Lee's bit on this is genius, though!
  • beefield 11y ago
    Thank you, I have tried to come up with industries without practically any IP protection. Now I have two. Comedy and Financial engineering. Funnily enough, I do not feel deprived of comedy, and what comes to financial innovations, I would argue that their supply is actually more than sufficient. (Maybe, just maybe, we should allow patents for financial instruments just for the sake of limiting the speed of development of those)
    • 7Z7 11y ago
      Clothing also. You cannot copyright an item of clothing, or even a particular cut. Only specific trademarkable additions, such as labelling and, for instance, the specific stitch pattern Levis do on the back pocket of their jeans.
    • LLWM 11y ago
      I don't feel deprived of comedy in general because anyone can redistribute some list of a few hundred jokes without repercussion. Good comedy, however, is hard to come by. I've heard it all before and now I need to look for niche domains like language intersection to find novel jokes.
• danharaj 11y ago
  Most people want to do things that they believe are worth doing for their own sake. Only those who gain property for the sake of gaining more property benefit from the current system, and they are given all the power because relations of ownership take precedence over all other concerns in the ideal conception of this system. So the ideology must claim that the system is for the benefit of all because the accumulation of profit/property is the motive of all, and that no one does anything useful for its own sake. To fail to do so invites questioning the primacy of property in determining the organization of society.
  • jib 11y ago
    It isn't about individuals though. It is about having a sructure that makes large scale, cooperative projects possible. If you are going to have ventures where large groups of people work a significant amount of time together to create something new you need either state funding, state protection of end result or to rely on some sponsorship program. For instance - medical research into new drugs isn't something that you sit down and think "I guess I'll do a few hours on the side" right? It is a multi year, multi people job. Either that is state funded, sponsor funded, or you can make money on the end product to pay for costs.
    • danharaj 11y ago
      I think your reasoning takes property as a given. Discard property, and it becomes much more of an open question how to organize large cooperative projects.
• JacobJans 11y ago
  Ummm, I run a small business, and I take advantage of intellectual property rights. Of course, you have no idea who I am, so why would my rights matter to you?
  • jedberg 11y ago
    If all the intellectual property rights went away tomorrow, would you shut down your business because it would no longer be a worthwhile endeavor? (honest question, not sarcastic)
    • vlehto 11y ago
      I would not start mine.
    • TheOtherHobbes 11y ago
      I know a number of devs who gave up because piracy - often justified on the basis that "copyright is teh stupid" - made it impossible for them to continue working on cool stuff and still pay the bills.
      • zimpenfish 11y ago
        But on the other anecdatal hand, there are plenty of devs who accept that piracy exists and manage just fine, e.g. Jeff Vogel http://jeff-vogel.blogspot.co.uk/2010/07/sometimes-its-ok-to-steal-my-games.html http://jeff-vogel.blogspot.co.uk/2010/07/sometimes-its-ok-to...
      • Spivak 11y ago
        And yet, it's been demonstrated again and again with Steam, Netflix, Spotify, etc. that people are willing to pay for content if the price isn't outrageous. For example, people are willing to pay for Spotify which with moderate average daily use (3 hours) is about 45 songs a day which comes out to $0.007 a song. Very few artists would be willing to admit that's how much their songs are really worth unless the listener is already a die-hard fan. Nearly every popular game on Steam can be pirated with enough effort and yet Steam sales are practically a national holiday. Piracy, like everything else has a cost, which can be beaten by good business rather than government control.
• mtgx 11y ago
  So can we all "get out money back" for Warner keeping this out of the public domain for so long?
• throwawaykf05 11y ago
  The claim is not really about "motivating" people to create, but making it easier to make a living off their works. People may well create new technology and art for other motivations, but ask yourself: how do they make a living, and would this income be likely if there was no way of protecting their works (whether the protection is enforced by themselves or their employers)? If they don't care about making a living out of their works, it's just a hobby, but the world is not run on hobbies. There are studies on these kinds of things. The picture is quite complex for patent systems, where economists struggle to prove whether we're better off with them or we'd be better off without them. There is no such question about the need for a copyright system though -- most studies are more about how much copyright protection is enough.
  • phkahler 11y ago
    >> The claim is not really about "motivating" people to create, but making it easier to make a living off their works. Ask a random author, musician, or artist how easy it is to make a living, and how much copyright law helps them. And if you do get a positive response, ask how having it apply for more than 10 years helps them.
    • SarahofGaia 11y ago
      > And if you do get a positive response, ask how having it apply for more than 10 years helps them. They did say, "most studies are more about how much copyright protection is enough", to be accurate. :/
      • throwawaykf05 11y ago
        Right, most studies don't question the need for copyright at all, just how it should be tweaked to be optimal.
• washadjeffmad 11y ago
  I think a history of copyright was posted here (from Ars?) not long ago, and it showed the greatest ralliers for copyright were not original artists, but publishers and distributors. With the advent of the printing press, publishers lost their monopoly over the once labor intensive reproduction of texts, so they pleaded that authors should be granted license over the products of their effort to protect and inspire creation of future works, so that they didn't meet the same fate as the publishers. Instead, publishers, still in control of their distribution monopolies, began requiring exclusive use of those licenses, and by using the printing press themselves, saved all of the effort and expense while preventing artists from profiting beyond the transfer of licenses to them. There's more than one industry in existence today whose business is being middlemen, and with the increasing ubiquity of internet, online marketplaces, and digital appliances, it's become difficult to justify that these rules not change except by that same old argument- but we won't be needed if you do!
  • LLWM 11y ago
    They are very much needed - just ask anyone who tries to go without. If they wouldn't be interested in doing business without the legal framework that currently exists, why is that an invalid argument? The "talent" is not the only one involved in bringing a creative work to consumers for them to enjoy.
    • SarahofGaia 11y ago
      I agree. Indeed, although most of the copyright stuff out there is driven by profit-hungry companies, the fact still remains that it is still a valuable protection for artists. For example, if a photographer takes a picture of something and posts it to their online website, without copyright anyone could just up and steal it and claim it as their own, and there'd be nothing the artist could do about it. Same thing for writers. And video directors. And musicians. Etc. Yes, it's misused and could use a lot of improvements; however, it's here for a good reason. Bottom Line: You can improve something without completely getting rid of it. Creative Commons (CC) is a great example of this; it allows for open sharing yet maintains attribution. This protects the artists whilst dismantling any motivation for publishers/distributors/other_companies to be copyright sharks about it.