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Legal systems are basically as old as, depending on how you slice it, writing. If you mean a specific US-centric model of a legal system, it dates back about a

Legal systems are basically as old as, depending on how you slice it, writing. If you mean a specific US-centric model of a legal system, it dates back about a thousand years or so. Copyright dates back to about the invention of the printing press, so about 600 years old. Common law has a good 400 years on that (and law itself, a couple thousand years on common law). Copyright is a baby by comparison. And given that it was functionally co-birthed with the printing press (since before that time, every copy was a blessing---a work of hand-crafted art someone had bothered to invest substantive human toil into because they thought a thing deserved to be recorded in more than one place), I don't think I have the tools to divide the benefits to society of copyright law from the benefits to society of mass, cheap reproduction of writeable concepts. It may have helped. It probably helped more in some spaces than in others. But by-and-large, it provided a system for a person to go live the "life of the mind" and exchange art for money instead of something else, and it's unclear to me that copyright did more than, say, the patronage system to that end. ... all of which is divorceable from the concept of, God help us, exclusive rights to perform a work, which is the weird space music lives in. Because we don't even charge by the written copy there; we often charge (to the best of the ability of the copyright holder) for every instance of "reading" the record and re-broadcasting it into someone's ears. Yes, I think one can build a case that the cost of upkeep, overhead, tracking, and maintenance to move money around in that system offsets the benefit to society. I think it's incumbent upon the rent-holders and copyright owners to explain how, absent their Byzantine system of moving money around, our public spaces would be silent and dead, devoid of creative works. The history of humanity and our simple desire to sing makes that strike me as profoundly unlikely.

edanm 8y ago
> But by-and-large, it provided a system for a person to go live the "life of the mind" and exchange art for money instead of something else, and it's unclear to me that copyright did more than, say, the patronage system to that end. There are problems with the patronage system. For example, almost all the people who could live the "life of the mind" were either the privileged few, or the people who appealed the to the privileged. While this certainly is one way to fund works, and I'm a huge fan of Patreon, as well as a Patron of many people, it's also going to only hit a subset of the kind of art we care about, and a very specific subset too (things that interest rich first-worlders that are economically better to target.) > I think it's incumbent upon the rent-holders and copyright owners to explain how, absent their Byzantine system of moving money around, our public spaces would be silent and dead, devoid of creative works. The history of humanity and our simple desire to sing makes that strike me as profoundly unlikely. I don't think anyone seriously makes that claim (or at least, I don't). I think my claims were: 1. On a practical level, this is economics 101 - if we up the reward for creative works, we'll get more creative works. 2. On a moral level, as long as we are in this capitalistic system, I think that one person creating value should have the same reward as another person creating value, and just because one happens to be easily copied and one doesn't, shouldn't make a difference. I can't find a moral reason to say to someone that, should they choose to become an author instead of building furniture, and should they happen to create works that please millions, they shouldn't get rewarded for that. You make it seem like the rent-holders and copyright owners have never explained why they want the system - but these things have been discussed since the dawn of the IP system. For one thing, have you talked to authors/musicians/etc and asked their views? I particularly remember reading a British parliament member talking a lot about this issue, including the problems with patronage and the problem with pirating - in the 1800s!
- fixermark 8y ago
  The musicians I've talked to find the current system really inconvenient and spend a lot more time arguing with the payment collection organizations then they would like to.

edanm 8y ago

> But by-and-large, it provided a system for a person to go live the "life of the mind" and exchange art for money instead of something else, and it's unclear to me that copyright did more than, say, the patronage system to that end. There are problems with the patronage system. For example, almost all the people who could live the "life of the mind" were either the privileged few, or the people who appealed the to the privileged. While this certainly is one way to fund works, and I'm a huge fan of Patreon, as well as a Patron of many people, it's also going to only hit a subset of the kind of art we care about, and a very specific subset too (things that interest rich first-worlders that are economically better to target.) > I think it's incumbent upon the rent-holders and copyright owners to explain how, absent their Byzantine system of moving money around, our public spaces would be silent and dead, devoid of creative works. The history of humanity and our simple desire to sing makes that strike me as profoundly unlikely. I don't think anyone seriously makes that claim (or at least, I don't). I think my claims were: 1. On a practical level, this is economics 101 - if we up the reward for creative works, we'll get more creative works. 2. On a moral level, as long as we are in this capitalistic system, I think that one person creating value should have the same reward as another person creating value, and just because one happens to be easily copied and one doesn't, shouldn't make a difference. I can't find a moral reason to say to someone that, should they choose to become an author instead of building furniture, and should they happen to create works that please millions, they shouldn't get rewarded for that. You make it seem like the rent-holders and copyright owners have never explained why they want the system - but these things have been discussed since the dawn of the IP system. For one thing, have you talked to authors/musicians/etc and asked their views? I particularly remember reading a British parliament member talking a lot about this issue, including the problems with patronage and the problem with pirating - in the 1800s!

fixermark 8y ago
The musicians I've talked to find the current system really inconvenient and spend a lot more time arguing with the payment collection organizations then they would like to.