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Burning copyright to the ground would be a significant improvement over the mess we have now. Artificial scarcity enriches a few at the expense of the many; har

Burning copyright to the ground would be a significant improvement over the mess we have now. Artificial scarcity enriches a few at the expense of the many; hardly a desirable state of affairs.

pbhjpbhj 7y ago
I appreciate the sentiment that leads one to such considerations, but really all I see with no copyright is that creators will be completely exploited and the only people making money from people's works will be corporations who lock stuff up with DRM, or with other IP, or sui generis licenses, or simply through physical gateways like only showing movies in cinemas. I don't see that this would lead to greater access to new media creations (though obviously past media would all be open to use). Short copyright terms - someone mentioned 20 years max, with registration needed after 5 years. That sort of thing is better, far better than both longer copyright and no copyright. The maximum term, IMO, should enable people to enjoy for free-gratis in their middle ages the media of their youth and build on that freely (libre) as inspiration to create cultural works for themselves and those that follow. Being able to have open, uninhibited access to one's own cultural inspirations well within one's working lifetime seems ideal to make sure that the demos get something worthwhile out of the deal. Works restricted by DRM can't enter the public domain and so should be exempt from protection by copyright, though I'd allow some sort of deposit system whereby companies could put un-bound works in escrow, and so still be allowed to get copyright protections.
- baddox 7y ago
  What you describe in the first paragraph seems like a detailed and accurate description of the current state of affairs, with strong copyright law essentially written by the large corporations you describe. Anyone who is making a modest living producing their own original IP is not doing so because of IP protection laws, because they surely cannot afford to litigate (and they certainly can't afford to lobby to get the laws to favor them).
h3throw 7y ago
This is true if you only consider the first order effect of copyright. However, the second order effects would lead to, for example, significant decrease in investment of the creation of any work that has marginal production of near $0. Why would Disney/Marvel go to the effort of creating the Avengers movies when those movies could be shown freely by movie theaters? They, of course, would not as there would be no way to recoup their investments. Now the millions of "the many" who have freely exchanged their dollars for movie tickets are worse off. Nobody wins, not the few and not the many. Why would GRRM write the next two works in ASOIAF if ANY publisher could take the text, print it and sell it without remuneration to GRRM? At best he would because he's already rich but would he ever have in the first place? The winners in your world may very well be Amazon and others with the easiest/best distribution platforms at the cost of the creators and in turn at the cost of all as the creators no longer create.
- TFYS 7y ago
  We could transition into a model where works are crowdfunded before they are made by people who want them the most. Creators set the amount they want for their work and if there are enough people that wish to see the work it will get funded and will be free for everyone to enjoy without artificial scarcity.
  - creddit 7y ago
    Crowdfunding exists today. We don't see this model much at all and certainly not at the levels of quality or scale seen in for-profit, copyright/IP based enterprise. Why? 1) To gain a crowdfunding base of sufficient size to replace the current models and achieve the necessary budgets in the first instance would require massive marketing spend. This would HAVE to be forked over prior to obtaining funding and therefore represents a major risk because with crowdfunding, it's all or nothing. 2) Tragedy of the commons/freeloading. Why agree to pony-up when I can wait/hope for some other saps to do so? 3) Crowdfunding means paying for something that doesn't exist to be created and trusting that the creators can/will create it at a level of quality that matches what you expected from their pitch. But wait, you've already committed your resources to them. Why should they actually strive to create an optimal good when they get your money regardless of the quality? This is a huge problem with crowdfunding. In today's world, you can rely on word of mouth, reviews, previews, etc. So, no, the proposed world would be much worse. The set of above reasons are really showstoppers, imo, and they don't even cover the full scope of the problems with your proposal.

Burning copyright to the ground would be a significant improvement over the mess we have now. Artificial scarcity enriches a few at the expense of the many; hardly a desirable state of affairs.

pbhjpbhj 7y ago

I appreciate the sentiment that leads one to such considerations, but really all I see with no copyright is that creators will be completely exploited and the only people making money from people's works will be corporations who lock stuff up with DRM, or with other IP, or sui generis licenses, or simply through physical gateways like only showing movies in cinemas. I don't see that this would lead to greater access to new media creations (though obviously past media would all be open to use). Short copyright terms - someone mentioned 20 years max, with registration needed after 5 years. That sort of thing is better, far better than both longer copyright and no copyright. The maximum term, IMO, should enable people to enjoy for free-gratis in their middle ages the media of their youth and build on that freely (libre) as inspiration to create cultural works for themselves and those that follow. Being able to have open, uninhibited access to one's own cultural inspirations well within one's working lifetime seems ideal to make sure that the demos get something worthwhile out of the deal. Works restricted by DRM can't enter the public domain and so should be exempt from protection by copyright, though I'd allow some sort of deposit system whereby companies could put un-bound works in escrow, and so still be allowed to get copyright protections.

baddox 7y ago
What you describe in the first paragraph seems like a detailed and accurate description of the current state of affairs, with strong copyright law essentially written by the large corporations you describe. Anyone who is making a modest living producing their own original IP is not doing so because of IP protection laws, because they surely cannot afford to litigate (and they certainly can't afford to lobby to get the laws to favor them).

h3throw 7y ago

This is true if you only consider the first order effect of copyright. However, the second order effects would lead to, for example, significant decrease in investment of the creation of any work that has marginal production of near $0. Why would Disney/Marvel go to the effort of creating the Avengers movies when those movies could be shown freely by movie theaters? They, of course, would not as there would be no way to recoup their investments. Now the millions of "the many" who have freely exchanged their dollars for movie tickets are worse off. Nobody wins, not the few and not the many. Why would GRRM write the next two works in ASOIAF if ANY publisher could take the text, print it and sell it without remuneration to GRRM? At best he would because he's already rich but would he ever have in the first place? The winners in your world may very well be Amazon and others with the easiest/best distribution platforms at the cost of the creators and in turn at the cost of all as the creators no longer create.

TFYS 7y ago
We could transition into a model where works are crowdfunded before they are made by people who want them the most. Creators set the amount they want for their work and if there are enough people that wish to see the work it will get funded and will be free for everyone to enjoy without artificial scarcity.
- creddit 7y ago
  Crowdfunding exists today. We don't see this model much at all and certainly not at the levels of quality or scale seen in for-profit, copyright/IP based enterprise. Why? 1) To gain a crowdfunding base of sufficient size to replace the current models and achieve the necessary budgets in the first instance would require massive marketing spend. This would HAVE to be forked over prior to obtaining funding and therefore represents a major risk because with crowdfunding, it's all or nothing. 2) Tragedy of the commons/freeloading. Why agree to pony-up when I can wait/hope for some other saps to do so? 3) Crowdfunding means paying for something that doesn't exist to be created and trusting that the creators can/will create it at a level of quality that matches what you expected from their pitch. But wait, you've already committed your resources to them. Why should they actually strive to create an optimal good when they get your money regardless of the quality? This is a huge problem with crowdfunding. In today's world, you can rely on word of mouth, reviews, previews, etc. So, no, the proposed world would be much worse. The set of above reasons are really showstoppers, imo, and they don't even cover the full scope of the problems with your proposal.