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Copyright laws are a finite duration social and legal grant to the creators of intellectual property with the intention of encouraging creation of work. It is

Copyright laws are a finite duration social and legal grant to the creators of intellectual property with the intention of encouraging creation of work. It is artificial relative to a particular vision of a "free" market, but the same could be said about any of the mechanisms that structure the market, thereby allowing it to function. In order to have a market you must have some rules. So what we do is try to figure out what rules work well and which ones impede things. Copyright/Patent/Trademark isn't a priori bad. It has funded many musicians, writers, inventors, painters, etc. It has often been referred to as one of the great innovations of Enlightenment era free-market practice. It allowed generations of thinkers to have compensation when previously the only form of wealth was goods and land backed up by physical violence. This is a nuanced topic, and I think it makes sense to treat it as such.

wolfgke 11y ago
> Copyright/Patent/Trademark isn't a priori bad. It has funded many musicians, writers, inventors, painters, etc. There is no reason why one can't pay money even when copyright laws wouldn't exist. I often do, for exampl for open source projects or for free ebooks where the author still asks for a donation if one can afford. The only difference is that the creator cannot force you, which I consider as a good thing.
- dalke 11y ago
  That's the patronage or tip jar model. It has also funded many people. But not as many as the copyright model. To flip your force model around, you cannot force people to create for you. But the hope of future money does provide incentive to many of them. Robert Heinlein, for example, started writing in order to pay of his mortgage.
  - wolfgke 11y ago
    > To flip your force model around, you cannot force people to create for you. But the hope of future money does provide incentive to many of them. But who says that this future money has to be enforced by copyright laws? It is also possible by either asking for donations (from which for example Tarn and Zach Adams, the creators of Dwarf Fortress, live) or something similar to Kickstarter/Indiegogo (the product won't be created/released until some money is donated). So in other words: Even this incentive wouldn't be killed if there were no copyright laws.
    - dalke 11y ago
      >who says that this future money has to be enforced by copyright laws I certainly didn't. I don't think there's anyone who says that copyright laws make it illegal to commission an artist. > Even this incentive wouldn't be killed if there were no copyright laws Yes, there are at least three systems (patron, tip jar, and copyright monopoly) to make money as a writer or artist.
      - wolfgke 11y ago
        > I don't think there's anyone who says that copyright laws make it illegal to commission an artist. But it makes it illegal not to give money to the copyright holder - quite a kind of (data) highway robbery.
        dalke 11y ago
        No one is forcing you to read their works in the first place. Nor is your example correct. The first sale doctrine still applies. If you own a legal copy then you do not need to give money to the copyright holder to sell the copy. If someone else has a copy, then you can buy it without sending any money to the copyright holder. Granted, we appear to have collectively and foolishly decided to reflexively click on "I agree", and switch to on-line rentals instead of actual purchases, making this harder. But it is only illegal if you make a copy. So don't do that. Then there's no (data) highway robbery. Problem solved!
        wolfgke 11y ago
        > But it is only illegal if you make a copy. So don't do that. So in other words you argue against free speech (creating a copy) and pro censorship. Writing texts that obey the censorship laws (or in western countries copyright laws) is illegal about nowhere.
        dalke 11y ago
        Wow. Really? Be sure to tell Stallman that the Free Software Foundation, based as it is on strong copyright, is really against free speech and is pro censorship.
- TheOtherHobbes 11y ago
  You may make donations. Most people don't. If you're trying to get paid for creative work, donations simply don't work as a model. There's a fundamental problem for both the arts and sciences, which is that in general terms, knowledge and creativity do not have a market value. You can't place a market value on a Mozart opera or the Theory of Relativity. You can't even place a market value on last week's most downloaded SoundCloud track. Or on the Linux kernel. Copyright is an attempt to butt-join creativity with a market economy. As such, it almost works, and it's the least bad solution for the context. But it's still the wrong answer. I'm not sure what a better answer would be, but it could be something like giving a person with unusual verifiable talent extra resources and time to pursue their interests. Academia used to work like that, but academia is always highly politicised, both internally and externally, which adds friction and error bars. If there was a way to create a similar system with less politics, that might work better. Or not. It's a hard problem to solve. But the current marketisation of everything - and FOSS is still marketised in its own way, IMO - is making things worse, not better.
  - wolfgke 11y ago
    > If you're trying to get paid for creative work, donations simply don't work as a model. Counterexample: Tarn and Zach Adams (Dwarf Fortress). > You can't place a market value on [...] the Theory of Relativity. Copyright does not help here.

wolfgke 11y ago

> Copyright/Patent/Trademark isn't a priori bad. It has funded many musicians, writers, inventors, painters, etc. There is no reason why one can't pay money even when copyright laws wouldn't exist. I often do, for exampl for open source projects or for free ebooks where the author still asks for a donation if one can afford. The only difference is that the creator cannot force you, which I consider as a good thing.

dalke 11y ago
That's the patronage or tip jar model. It has also funded many people. But not as many as the copyright model. To flip your force model around, you cannot force people to create for you. But the hope of future money does provide incentive to many of them. Robert Heinlein, for example, started writing in order to pay of his mortgage.
- wolfgke 11y ago
  > To flip your force model around, you cannot force people to create for you. But the hope of future money does provide incentive to many of them. But who says that this future money has to be enforced by copyright laws? It is also possible by either asking for donations (from which for example Tarn and Zach Adams, the creators of Dwarf Fortress, live) or something similar to Kickstarter/Indiegogo (the product won't be created/released until some money is donated). So in other words: Even this incentive wouldn't be killed if there were no copyright laws.
  - dalke 11y ago
    >who says that this future money has to be enforced by copyright laws I certainly didn't. I don't think there's anyone who says that copyright laws make it illegal to commission an artist. > Even this incentive wouldn't be killed if there were no copyright laws Yes, there are at least three systems (patron, tip jar, and copyright monopoly) to make money as a writer or artist.
    - wolfgke 11y ago
      > I don't think there's anyone who says that copyright laws make it illegal to commission an artist. But it makes it illegal not to give money to the copyright holder - quite a kind of (data) highway robbery.
      - dalke 11y ago
        No one is forcing you to read their works in the first place. Nor is your example correct. The first sale doctrine still applies. If you own a legal copy then you do not need to give money to the copyright holder to sell the copy. If someone else has a copy, then you can buy it without sending any money to the copyright holder. Granted, we appear to have collectively and foolishly decided to reflexively click on "I agree", and switch to on-line rentals instead of actual purchases, making this harder. But it is only illegal if you make a copy. So don't do that. Then there's no (data) highway robbery. Problem solved!
        wolfgke 11y ago
        > But it is only illegal if you make a copy. So don't do that. So in other words you argue against free speech (creating a copy) and pro censorship. Writing texts that obey the censorship laws (or in western countries copyright laws) is illegal about nowhere.
        dalke 11y ago
        Wow. Really? Be sure to tell Stallman that the Free Software Foundation, based as it is on strong copyright, is really against free speech and is pro censorship.
TheOtherHobbes 11y ago
You may make donations. Most people don't. If you're trying to get paid for creative work, donations simply don't work as a model. There's a fundamental problem for both the arts and sciences, which is that in general terms, knowledge and creativity do not have a market value. You can't place a market value on a Mozart opera or the Theory of Relativity. You can't even place a market value on last week's most downloaded SoundCloud track. Or on the Linux kernel. Copyright is an attempt to butt-join creativity with a market economy. As such, it almost works, and it's the least bad solution for the context. But it's still the wrong answer. I'm not sure what a better answer would be, but it could be something like giving a person with unusual verifiable talent extra resources and time to pursue their interests. Academia used to work like that, but academia is always highly politicised, both internally and externally, which adds friction and error bars. If there was a way to create a similar system with less politics, that might work better. Or not. It's a hard problem to solve. But the current marketisation of everything - and FOSS is still marketised in its own way, IMO - is making things worse, not better.
- wolfgke 11y ago
  > If you're trying to get paid for creative work, donations simply don't work as a model. Counterexample: Tarn and Zach Adams (Dwarf Fortress). > You can't place a market value on [...] the Theory of Relativity. Copyright does not help here.