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> Life of creator seems reasonable to me Why? If the creator actually makes things that people want, you should incentivise them to make more things. Giving th

> Life of creator seems reasonable to me Why? If the creator actually makes things that people want, you should incentivise them to make more things. Giving them lifetime copyright disincentivises that. A limited (say 5-, 10-year) copyright allows them to profit from successes, but prevents them from resting on their laurels from a single success - not because they do or don't 'deserve' to, but because we want them to create more things during their lifetime.

toasterlovin 8y ago
Because economic productivity is not the only (or even the primary) concern that we should have when considering property rights. I mean, do you also believe that ownership of tangible assets (like your house) should be limited to 5 years? By your reasoning, it would be bad if people were able to accumulate assets, because then they would haven no motivation to keep working and creating value.
- _emacsomancer_ 8y ago
  Copyright is different in many respects from ownership of tangible assets. You and I can both read the works of Shakespeare at the same time (with millions of other people) with no conflicts, but only so many people can 'use' a house at the same time. The original point of copyright was to encourage creators to create (if their creations could be immediately 'used' for free by others, they would have much less reason to create in the first place). It has little public value otherwise.
  - toasterlovin 8y ago
    What I'm saying is that property rights (tangible or intangible) are not strictly about public value, regardless of the arguments used to originally justify copyright laws. Try applying your reasoning to a trademark. If you have two companies using the same trademark to create identical products, there is no affect on the value to the public. But there is a huge change to the value of the person or company that originally started using that trademark. And the reason we restrict the use of that trademark is because the originator put a bunch of effort into making it valuable and we recognize that this effort should result in some kind of ownership because that is what's fair.
    - _emacsomancer_ 8y ago
      > Try applying your reasoning to a trademark. But I'm not making any argument about trademarks, or physical property ownership. My arguments are about copyright, and I'm not very interested in conflating copyright with trademarks and patents and ownership of land &c. > because that is what's fair This is where it gets tricky of course. What's fair, exactly, and to whom? (Again, though, I'm not interested in talking about trademarks.)
      - toasterlovin 8y ago
        I think flat out refusing to accept arguments by analogy is not arguing in good faith (I mean, you didn't even provide a reason for why trademarks are not a good analogy, you just refuse to even consider the line of argument). But whatever. Why do others have the right to derive enjoyment or economic benefit from the works of creators?
        _emacsomancer_ 8y ago
        Because trademarks are not governed by the same set of laws, and are pretty different in purpose. You not being able sell sweet fizzy drinks using Coca-Cola branding is at least as much for the benefit of consumers (so they don't buy non-Coca-Cola drink when they want Coca-Cola) as it is for the Coca-Cola company. A trademark is really a very different thing than say a novel or a film or a piece of music or even a piece of software. The only way in which copyright and trademarks are really relatable is under the vague, squishy and not-very-useful umbrella of 'intellectual property'. I think it's fair for me to say that when I am talking about creators of novels and films etc. and copyright limits w.r.t. encouraging/discouraging creators from creating I shouldn't have to talk about trademarks, which have very little to do with the sort of creation I'm talking about.
        toasterlovin 8y ago
        Thank you for pointing out the consumer protection aspect of trademark, I did not have that in mind when I made that comparison (I had in mind the aspect of trademark that benefits the holder, which I think actually has a lot in common with copyright, but I’ll not belabor an irrelevancy). So if I am understanding you correctly, your stance is that the creator of some copyrightable work has no inherent right to control the use of that work? And you think that the only reason they should be allowed to control the use of their work is to incentivize creation of new works, not because they deserve a share of the value created by the use of their work (a song used in an advertisement, for example)? To be clear, I’m asking for your opinion as a judge of moral issues, not for the legal theory behind copyright.
chipotle_coyote 8y ago
I suspect you're thinking of big creators with those numbers, which is understandable, but copyright isn't only about "protecting" Disney and major record labels. Indie authors, musicians, comic creators, and so on are out there, too, and building up a "library" of works for sale is virtually the only way indies are going to be able to make the bulk of their living wage from their works. Five years just seems too short in light of that. Personally, I think the original US Copyright Act of 1790 -- based on an even earlier British statute -- had a pretty good approach: a 14-year term granted upon publication, renewable for a second (but only a second) 14-year term by a living author.

toasterlovin 8y ago

Because economic productivity is not the only (or even the primary) concern that we should have when considering property rights. I mean, do you also believe that ownership of tangible assets (like your house) should be limited to 5 years? By your reasoning, it would be bad if people were able to accumulate assets, because then they would haven no motivation to keep working and creating value.

_emacsomancer_ 8y ago
Copyright is different in many respects from ownership of tangible assets. You and I can both read the works of Shakespeare at the same time (with millions of other people) with no conflicts, but only so many people can 'use' a house at the same time. The original point of copyright was to encourage creators to create (if their creations could be immediately 'used' for free by others, they would have much less reason to create in the first place). It has little public value otherwise.
- toasterlovin 8y ago
  What I'm saying is that property rights (tangible or intangible) are not strictly about public value, regardless of the arguments used to originally justify copyright laws. Try applying your reasoning to a trademark. If you have two companies using the same trademark to create identical products, there is no affect on the value to the public. But there is a huge change to the value of the person or company that originally started using that trademark. And the reason we restrict the use of that trademark is because the originator put a bunch of effort into making it valuable and we recognize that this effort should result in some kind of ownership because that is what's fair.
  - _emacsomancer_ 8y ago
    > Try applying your reasoning to a trademark. But I'm not making any argument about trademarks, or physical property ownership. My arguments are about copyright, and I'm not very interested in conflating copyright with trademarks and patents and ownership of land &c. > because that is what's fair This is where it gets tricky of course. What's fair, exactly, and to whom? (Again, though, I'm not interested in talking about trademarks.)
    - toasterlovin 8y ago
      I think flat out refusing to accept arguments by analogy is not arguing in good faith (I mean, you didn't even provide a reason for why trademarks are not a good analogy, you just refuse to even consider the line of argument). But whatever. Why do others have the right to derive enjoyment or economic benefit from the works of creators?
      - _emacsomancer_ 8y ago
        Because trademarks are not governed by the same set of laws, and are pretty different in purpose. You not being able sell sweet fizzy drinks using Coca-Cola branding is at least as much for the benefit of consumers (so they don't buy non-Coca-Cola drink when they want Coca-Cola) as it is for the Coca-Cola company. A trademark is really a very different thing than say a novel or a film or a piece of music or even a piece of software. The only way in which copyright and trademarks are really relatable is under the vague, squishy and not-very-useful umbrella of 'intellectual property'. I think it's fair for me to say that when I am talking about creators of novels and films etc. and copyright limits w.r.t. encouraging/discouraging creators from creating I shouldn't have to talk about trademarks, which have very little to do with the sort of creation I'm talking about.
        toasterlovin 8y ago
        Thank you for pointing out the consumer protection aspect of trademark, I did not have that in mind when I made that comparison (I had in mind the aspect of trademark that benefits the holder, which I think actually has a lot in common with copyright, but I’ll not belabor an irrelevancy). So if I am understanding you correctly, your stance is that the creator of some copyrightable work has no inherent right to control the use of that work? And you think that the only reason they should be allowed to control the use of their work is to incentivize creation of new works, not because they deserve a share of the value created by the use of their work (a song used in an advertisement, for example)? To be clear, I’m asking for your opinion as a judge of moral issues, not for the legal theory behind copyright.

chipotle_coyote 8y ago

I suspect you're thinking of big creators with those numbers, which is understandable, but copyright isn't only about "protecting" Disney and major record labels. Indie authors, musicians, comic creators, and so on are out there, too, and building up a "library" of works for sale is virtually the only way indies are going to be able to make the bulk of their living wage from their works. Five years just seems too short in light of that. Personally, I think the original US Copyright Act of 1790 -- based on an even earlier British statute -- had a pretty good approach: a 14-year term granted upon publication, renewable for a second (but only a second) 14-year term by a living author.