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this might be an unpopular opinion, but I think copyright is a good thing, as it allows for artists to actually get paid for their work
by make3 9y ago
this might be an unpopular opinion, but I think copyright is a good thing, as it allows for artists to actually get paid for their work
- goblins 9y agoUnfortunately that is rarely the case especially in the US.
- jstarfish 9y agoI agree, but the current landscape is such that it feels like seeing a street performer only accepting tips in Bitcoin. Do you want my money or not? It's made clear to me every time I want to go watch something and am willing to pay money for it but it's not available on any of the platforms (read: middlemen) I pay to subscribe to; I have to subscribe to yet another one just to see that show. Or it was there until yesterday, then it was removed without warning. I found myself in a position recently where the only way I could watch a particular show would be if I went down to the store and bought the box set on DVD. But I don't own a DVD player, haven't needed one in years, and wasn't about to buy one..
- yellow_postit 9y agoSo just don’t watch it. I don’t get why that’s so hard.
- xyzzyz 9y agoYou mean, it allows corporations to make money. Actual artists derive most of their income either from salaries, or are paid for performances.
- lostcolony 9y agoTotally. Which is why it ends with the author's death. OH WAIT. But it's totally necessary; back before it existed no one ever made any money for their creative works, so with no incentive no one ever made anything creative before copyright law. OH WAIT.
- distances 9y agoThis kind of rhetoric is quite tiresome, please don't.
- sdbryan 9y agoThis rhetoric might be tiresome except for the FACT that it is so devastatingly true. A significantly different copyright legal framework might be defensible but the current system is simply laws bought by the highest bidder
- coldacid 9y agoHe's not wrong, though.
- distances 9y agoYes, he is right of course. The "mock surprise" way of delivering a point isn't at all conductive to a discussion though.
- lostcolony 9y agoThe point I was replying to was either equally flippant, or it was incredibly naive. I am assuming someone on HN, posting about copyright, is the former, not the latter. If the person was literally so naive to believe that the only way for a creator to be paid for their work is to have the copyright system we currently have, then I apologize for my tone.
- explainplease 9y agoThis kind of complaint is quite tiresome. Please don't. Seriously, I tire of this notion that discussion must be dry and boring. Holding discussion hostage to "don't say anything that might offend, police your tone, and say everything as plainly and factually as possible"-type rules allows intellectually dishonest participants to game the system, i.e. bullshit asymmetry. Clever use of rhetoric is an effective tool for highlighting disingenuous arguments. In this age of information overload, we need it.
- dragontamer 9y ago@make3: I think you're fine to have that opinion and I think its reasonable (despite your downvotes). I'm going to +1 you because you are truly contributing an important opinion to the discussion and you shouldn't be downvoted for that. The main issue is that "Artists to get paid for their work" seems to work against copyright in many respects. Consider CD Project Red, which has DRM-free downloads on Good ol Games. Basically all modern copyright protection schemes are effectively outlawed on the GoG platform and yet "Witcher 3" manages to do incredibly well. (As well as many other games on the GoG platform) In contrast, the heavy-handed approach with DRM and Lootboxes on Steam and whatnot seems to be failing hard at capturing audiences and letting people feel like they're actually contributing to the artists / creators of various works. ---------------- Another model: the Patreon model, seems to be the #1 source of new upstarts around the internet. Youtube Stars and high-quality content like "Smarter every day", and also lots of... unsavory... lower quality content... gets paid through the Patreon model (which is wholly independent to copyright). You can destroy copyright tomorrow, and ALL Patreon stars (comic-artists, Youtube stars, minor video game developers) will continue to be paid for their work. Even in the music industry: it seems like "gigs" are the main way for bands to make money. Some money is made from iTunes / Amazon downloads, but most of that money goes to Sony (or other Publishers). Not the artist themselves. As such, the general feeling is that "copyright protects the Corporations", not the artists. Corporations deserve a cut of course: middle men are necessary in a lot of fields. But I think almost everyone feels like the current copyright system provides too much benefit to the middle-men, and not enough benefits to the artist.
- khedoros1 9y agoProblems: - Company hires a bunch of artists to make something, pays them one time, keeps gathering checks decades after the artists are dead, and even longer after they're getting any payment for the work. - Artist collects money from their work, dies, and the estate continues collecting for decades. The purpose of copyright should be to encourage artists to create works for the enrichment of society as a whole, by giving them a monopoly on sale of those works for a limited time, followed by a release of the work into the public domain. Instead, we've got constantly-extending terms, slim-to-no chance of something still being culturally relevant by the time its copyright expires, and people besides the artists receiving the most benefit, in many cases. Copyright itself can be a good thing, but the current U.S. implementation of it sucks.
- make3 9y agoi agree that for patents, monopolising an invention forever allows innovation too much. but for art? the world will survive without getting able to copy a specific artist's work for free.. they created something out of thin air, there is very little reason for them to benefit from it, including selling it's rights or them moving on to their successors, like all other things that have value
- sigstoat 9y ago> i agree that for patents, monopolising an invention forever allows innovation too much. patents are largely unrelated to discussion of copyright. the durations are separate, and in fact, patent durations are largely harmonized to be 20 years, now. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Term_of_patent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Term_of_patent that's nothing compared to the ~75 years of copyright.
- Y_Y 9y agoAn artistic work that came from thin air? That didn't derive partially from the society in which it was created or take inspiration from preceding works? I don't think such a thing exists.
- 9y ago
- eikenberry 9y agoI agree it once was a good thing, but not anymore. It once was a good compromise where we gave up our right to share for a limited time to incentivize the distribution of works. This was a good compromise as 'sharing' at the time was very hard (required hand copying or a printing press). But today it is a terrible compromise as not only is distribution no longer a problem, they have stretched limited-time out so far as to be meaningless.