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Copyright in some form is clearly beneficial; there are whole classes of creative professional that simply wouldn't exist without it. Not every form of creative
by jdietrich 9y ago
Copyright in some form is clearly beneficial; there are whole classes of creative professional that simply wouldn't exist without it. Not every form of creative activity can be effectively funded through live performance or digital begging.
99% of "content" being churned out by amateurs is absolutely dire. Producing creative works of serious merit requires a major investment of time and resources. Many skilled and talented people really would be put off investing that effort if they knew that an advertising company could use their music for free, or a publisher could churn out paperbacks without paying a royalty.
The primary problem is clearly understood - endless copyright extensions that offer no benefit to artists, but concentrate power in the hands of a few media companies. The duration of a patent is 20 years; I think this would be a reasonable basis for copyright. Failing that, I think that "author's life + 10 years" with an orphan works clause is also reasonable. What certainly isn't reasonable is the current duration of copyright, which is effectively forever.
- TaylorAlexander 9y agoI think shorter or no IP protection terms would on average harm the wealthiest and benefit the poorest in this world. How many lives would be improved if all the medicine in the world could be freely cloned? How much cheaper would our cars be if the designs could be legally cloned?
- toomanybeersies 9y agoBut what impetus would drug companies have for researching and developing new drugs, if they're just instantly going to be copied by another company? Why not just sit back and wait for another company to develop them?
- nfoz 9y agoIt's a weird thought experiment.... if we halted all new drug r&d and instead cheaply distributed all the medicines that we have already invented, how much more people would benefit, and at whose cost? And how long would that "honeymoon phase" last?
- TaylorAlexander 9y agoCertainly if we abolished IP laws we would need to intentionally fund medical research rather than using the pseudo market based approach (mixed with government subsidy) that we have now. I should say I know little about our current process, but I do believe we could find a way.