6 ms·

Patents and trademarks maybe, but copyright? You have copyright on basically anything you create. Should I pay taxes on everything I put on github? On essays I

by simonbw 10y ago

Patents and trademarks maybe, but copyright? You have copyright on basically anything you create. Should I pay taxes on everything I put on github? On essays I write? What if I'm a famous artist? If I make some artwork to go in my living room, should I really pay 1% of the assessed value of that every year? If I write a book, is it not enough to pay taxes on the income I get by selling my book? Should I really have to pay taxes on it to keep it out of the public domain?

reitanqild 10y ago
Thanks! I feel a little less smart now which is a good sign. :-)
bostonvaulter2 10y ago
Who said anything about copywright?
- lordnacho 10y ago
  Copyright is a form of IP.
- jahnu 10y ago
  > Intelectual Property (especially patents and copyrights)
Aaargh20318 10y ago
> If I write a book, is it not enough to pay taxes on the income I get by selling my book? If I rent out a house, is it not enough to pay taxes on the income I get from rent ? > Should I really have to pay taxes on it to keep it out of the public domain? Yes. If you build a house with your own two hands, should you not pay property tax on it ?
- astrodust 10y ago
  A house takes up physical space. Intellectual property doesn't. The reason we have property taxes is because maintaining the environment around the house costs money. There's no roads and sewers and schools for books.
  - beagle3 10y ago
    there are a lot of costs involved with enforcing property rights. It's not sewers but it is legal departments, customs offices and law enforcement officers. Also, a patent takes space by disallowing me to use the same kind of invention (even if I came up with it independently). And a copyright sometimes stops me from being able to use a "cultural common". They most definitely take space. And real estate property taxes are often supplemented by "road maintenance levies". They don't directly support the property's infrastructure when you really look into it.
    - astrodust 10y ago
      Patents are a fairly large investment, plus they're a fixed life-span item. Although I'm largely against patents, fiddling with the fees associated with them won't help solve any problems. Now when it comes to copyright enforcement, 99.99% of the copyrighted material out there is never formally published. It's source code, it's email, it's creative works produced and shared but never curated or packaged. How can you possibly tax all of that?
      - beagle3 10y ago
        If it's not published, its protection comes mostly from not being seen (in private setting) or from trade secrets and associated laws. If only want to use the tax as a way to make sure orphaned works can be shared, and patent trolls become unprofitable. I believe that an IP tax can help both. I think it is essential to force proper valuation of IP, and I think tying it to recovery (upside) and taxes (downside) is likely to give a proper evaluation. It is not my intention to try to tax your own painting on your living room. I assume, by default, anything not listed, is valued at $0 for that year. Do you understand that, regardless for copyrights or patents, your IP is not enforceable unless you can afford the court action?
        astrodust 10y ago
        I was going to mention that the enforcement cost is largely borne by the copyright holder, so there's a built-in tax there, but don't forget mechanisms like the DMCA provisions are cheap and can be applied with a heavy hand. There's a solution to orphaned works: Reduce copyright to something like 25-50 years (plus life of creator?) and allow for one renewal, which requires a filing fee, for another 25-50 years. That's it. Suddenly all these orphaned works are liberated because it's not worth it for people to file. Taxing based on valuation is absolutely, monstrously ridiculous. Many people write short fiction they publish online. Are you going to suggest they need to get an appraisal on their book, and then pay taxes on it? How many millions of people are going to review this and ensure that everything's tallied up correctly. Orphaned works are a problem, but taxing them is not a solution.
randomdata 10y ago
It was suggested elsewhere that you would assess the value yourself, so if the only utility of your work is to hang it in your living room, you could claim it has $0 copyright value, and thus pay no tax. The implication is that if someone decides to copy it, your claim for damages in court is based on that $0. But if your intent is to keep a private copy in your living room without the willingness to share with the public who gave you the privilege of copyright in the first place, perhaps that still remains fair.

by simonbw 10y ago

reitanqild 10y ago

Thanks! I feel a little less smart now which is a good sign. :-)

bostonvaulter2 10y ago

Who said anything about copywright?

lordnacho 10y ago
Copyright is a form of IP.
jahnu 10y ago
> Intelectual Property (especially patents and copyrights)

Aaargh20318 10y ago

> If I write a book, is it not enough to pay taxes on the income I get by selling my book? If I rent out a house, is it not enough to pay taxes on the income I get from rent ? > Should I really have to pay taxes on it to keep it out of the public domain? Yes. If you build a house with your own two hands, should you not pay property tax on it ?

astrodust 10y ago
A house takes up physical space. Intellectual property doesn't. The reason we have property taxes is because maintaining the environment around the house costs money. There's no roads and sewers and schools for books.
- beagle3 10y ago
  there are a lot of costs involved with enforcing property rights. It's not sewers but it is legal departments, customs offices and law enforcement officers. Also, a patent takes space by disallowing me to use the same kind of invention (even if I came up with it independently). And a copyright sometimes stops me from being able to use a "cultural common". They most definitely take space. And real estate property taxes are often supplemented by "road maintenance levies". They don't directly support the property's infrastructure when you really look into it.
  - astrodust 10y ago
    Patents are a fairly large investment, plus they're a fixed life-span item. Although I'm largely against patents, fiddling with the fees associated with them won't help solve any problems. Now when it comes to copyright enforcement, 99.99% of the copyrighted material out there is never formally published. It's source code, it's email, it's creative works produced and shared but never curated or packaged. How can you possibly tax all of that?
    - beagle3 10y ago
      If it's not published, its protection comes mostly from not being seen (in private setting) or from trade secrets and associated laws. If only want to use the tax as a way to make sure orphaned works can be shared, and patent trolls become unprofitable. I believe that an IP tax can help both. I think it is essential to force proper valuation of IP, and I think tying it to recovery (upside) and taxes (downside) is likely to give a proper evaluation. It is not my intention to try to tax your own painting on your living room. I assume, by default, anything not listed, is valued at $0 for that year. Do you understand that, regardless for copyrights or patents, your IP is not enforceable unless you can afford the court action?
      - astrodust 10y ago
        I was going to mention that the enforcement cost is largely borne by the copyright holder, so there's a built-in tax there, but don't forget mechanisms like the DMCA provisions are cheap and can be applied with a heavy hand. There's a solution to orphaned works: Reduce copyright to something like 25-50 years (plus life of creator?) and allow for one renewal, which requires a filing fee, for another 25-50 years. That's it. Suddenly all these orphaned works are liberated because it's not worth it for people to file. Taxing based on valuation is absolutely, monstrously ridiculous. Many people write short fiction they publish online. Are you going to suggest they need to get an appraisal on their book, and then pay taxes on it? How many millions of people are going to review this and ensure that everything's tallied up correctly. Orphaned works are a problem, but taxing them is not a solution.

randomdata 10y ago

It was suggested elsewhere that you would assess the value yourself, so if the only utility of your work is to hang it in your living room, you could claim it has $0 copyright value, and thus pay no tax. The implication is that if someone decides to copy it, your claim for damages in court is based on that $0. But if your intent is to keep a private copy in your living room without the willingness to share with the public who gave you the privilege of copyright in the first place, perhaps that still remains fair.