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End copyright. It creates a situation in which every individual using the internet violates, or benefits from the violation of, civil law every day. It create

End copyright. It creates a situation in which every individual using the internet violates, or benefits from the violation of, civil law every day. It creates a situation in which individuals cannot be trusted to run code on hardware they own. It creates the conditions for censorship on online platforms. Just end copyright. The idea that software, music, movies, books and so on will cease to exist is a complete farce. I'll keep writing software. You will too. Most of us here will. Maybe not the commercially driven ones. I think we've seen enough damage from that already over the last few years.

olliej 8y ago
To clarify you're saying that you are ok with someone selling your software? Or any company could make a closed source distribution of linux?
- terragon 8y ago
  Post the copyright sunset, if his software is already available for free, then why would someone pay money for it? To answer your second question, most individual users of Linux use it for the openness, not the zero cost. I'd imagine businesses do not care so much about openness, though mine is extremely paranoid against using closed source.
- esotericn 8y ago
  > To clarify you're saying that you are ok with someone selling your software? Yes. I contribute to and create software with licences that permit it. In a world with copyright I prefer GPL-type licenses, in a world without copyright everything would be MIT-like. A legal requirement to attribute might be nice but I don't really care. I think that the legal system should deal with matters of importance, not social politeness. > Or any company could make a closed source distribution of linux? Sure. They wouldn't be able to prevent anyone from copying it. Ultimately I can't really see a viable business model for it that doesn't already exist - e.g. Android is already essentially closed source, partly due to a bunch of binary blobs and partly due to all of the infrastructure built up around the platform.
  - olliej 8y ago
    Without copyright an mit license would not mean anything - the existence of copyright is the only thing that makes software “property” that you can own. In a post-copyright world there would not be anything for you to license. If you want to apply a license to something there has to be something to license.
    - esotericn 8y ago
      Yes. It's unclear to me what point you're making here. In a world without copyright all software would be usable in the same way MIT software is now, except there'd be no attribution requirement. I specifically mentioned that in my post. Everything would be public domain.
axilmar 8y ago
> It creates a situation in which every individual using the internet violates, or benefits from the violation of, civil law every day. That's the problem of the internet, not of intellectual property. And it would be easily solved by technology in the near future. > It creates a situation in which individuals cannot be trusted to run code on hardware they own. No it doesn't. It's not a matter of trust, it's a matter of pirating material, which is theft. > It creates the conditions for censorship on online platforms. No it does not. People will not be banned from expressing their opinion online if their opinion doesn't contain anything copyrighted. > Just end copyright. The idea that software, music, movies, books and so on will cease to exist is a complete farce. What is a complete farce is people that don't understand that without the economic motivation, most people don't do things. Piracy has created huge problems in the past for home computers, for example. It was impossible to monetize the creation of a good game, although most people have played those games, due to piracy, which killed a lot of game software houses around 25-30 years ago. > I'll keep writing software. You will too. Most of us here will. Yeah right. Would Red Dead Redemption 2 be made with such an economic model? no, it would not. Who would have funded it? no one. > I think we've seen enough damage from that already over the last few years. What damage? there isn't any damage whatsoever from copyright.
- esotericn 8y ago
  For the most part your argument seems to boil down to "everyone else should suffer limitations so that Red Dead Redemption 2 can exist". I imagine we can also include a few Hollywood blockbusters in there. If that's your viewpoint, fine. I don't have to agree, I think it's ridiculous to consider bits uncopyable and lock down general purpose computers so that video games and movies have nicer graphics. This message was brought to you by a fully FOSS stack.
mixmastamyk 8y ago
Copyright is meant to incentivize creators by giving them a limited-time exclusive monopoly on their content. That's fine. It was originally 14 years I believe, and I could see reasonable arguments for 25 or 30 perhaps. But, it has been so far extended that multinationals and grandchildren are those that reap the benefits now, while stealing from the public domain. The best quote I've read on the subject said something like, "But, how will we incentivize dead people to create new works!?" I think that about sums up the current situation.

olliej 8y ago

To clarify you're saying that you are ok with someone selling your software? Or any company could make a closed source distribution of linux?

terragon 8y ago
Post the copyright sunset, if his software is already available for free, then why would someone pay money for it? To answer your second question, most individual users of Linux use it for the openness, not the zero cost. I'd imagine businesses do not care so much about openness, though mine is extremely paranoid against using closed source.
esotericn 8y ago
> To clarify you're saying that you are ok with someone selling your software? Yes. I contribute to and create software with licences that permit it. In a world with copyright I prefer GPL-type licenses, in a world without copyright everything would be MIT-like. A legal requirement to attribute might be nice but I don't really care. I think that the legal system should deal with matters of importance, not social politeness. > Or any company could make a closed source distribution of linux? Sure. They wouldn't be able to prevent anyone from copying it. Ultimately I can't really see a viable business model for it that doesn't already exist - e.g. Android is already essentially closed source, partly due to a bunch of binary blobs and partly due to all of the infrastructure built up around the platform.
- olliej 8y ago
  Without copyright an mit license would not mean anything - the existence of copyright is the only thing that makes software “property” that you can own. In a post-copyright world there would not be anything for you to license. If you want to apply a license to something there has to be something to license.
  - esotericn 8y ago
    Yes. It's unclear to me what point you're making here. In a world without copyright all software would be usable in the same way MIT software is now, except there'd be no attribution requirement. I specifically mentioned that in my post. Everything would be public domain.

axilmar 8y ago

> It creates a situation in which every individual using the internet violates, or benefits from the violation of, civil law every day. That's the problem of the internet, not of intellectual property. And it would be easily solved by technology in the near future. > It creates a situation in which individuals cannot be trusted to run code on hardware they own. No it doesn't. It's not a matter of trust, it's a matter of pirating material, which is theft. > It creates the conditions for censorship on online platforms. No it does not. People will not be banned from expressing their opinion online if their opinion doesn't contain anything copyrighted. > Just end copyright. The idea that software, music, movies, books and so on will cease to exist is a complete farce. What is a complete farce is people that don't understand that without the economic motivation, most people don't do things. Piracy has created huge problems in the past for home computers, for example. It was impossible to monetize the creation of a good game, although most people have played those games, due to piracy, which killed a lot of game software houses around 25-30 years ago. > I'll keep writing software. You will too. Most of us here will. Yeah right. Would Red Dead Redemption 2 be made with such an economic model? no, it would not. Who would have funded it? no one. > I think we've seen enough damage from that already over the last few years. What damage? there isn't any damage whatsoever from copyright.

esotericn 8y ago
For the most part your argument seems to boil down to "everyone else should suffer limitations so that Red Dead Redemption 2 can exist". I imagine we can also include a few Hollywood blockbusters in there. If that's your viewpoint, fine. I don't have to agree, I think it's ridiculous to consider bits uncopyable and lock down general purpose computers so that video games and movies have nicer graphics. This message was brought to you by a fully FOSS stack.

mixmastamyk 8y ago

Copyright is meant to incentivize creators by giving them a limited-time exclusive monopoly on their content. That's fine. It was originally 14 years I believe, and I could see reasonable arguments for 25 or 30 perhaps. But, it has been so far extended that multinationals and grandchildren are those that reap the benefits now, while stealing from the public domain. The best quote I've read on the subject said something like, "But, how will we incentivize dead people to create new works!?" I think that about sums up the current situation.