4 ms·

Isn't that the premise of our society? Ownership, money, ... All of it highly artificial and it only exists as long as we allow it to. Copyright is more than j

by doh 7y ago

Isn't that the premise of our society? Ownership, money, ... All of it highly artificial and it only exists as long as we allow it to. Copyright is more than just a stick that many people see. Copyright is first and foremost an attribution. It's the only formal recognition of someone's unique work. Considering that we are trying to automate all manual labor in the not so distant future, copyright is more and not less important to our society. I agree, that the tools and practices used today are crude and in many cases unfair, but once we remove the stigma associated with it, we will get more innovation in it. I can't name many creators that would not like to be recognized for their work and even less that don't want to be paid for it.

riffraff 7y ago
> Copyright is first and foremost an attribution are you sure about this? It seems to me copyright as it is in common law countries is first and foremost about _controlling distribution_. It's literally the right to make copies. AFAIU, there is a difference from common law countries, for example. E.g. in Italy an author cannot ever lose the status of author of a work, even if the the distribution rights are owned by someone else.
- doh 7y ago
  Copyright as a legal concept is fairly old and the perception on it changed a lot within the history. For instance SACEM [0] was established 170 years ago in France. The general idea was to allow creators and rights holders to control their distribution but recent changes, in US MMA [1] and in EU the Copyright Directive [2] are now moving from focusing on distribution to getting creators paid. If we look far enough in the future, copyright will mean something very different that what it means today. But I'm biased, considering that I built company in this space. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Société_des_auteurs,_compositeurs_et_éditeurs_de_musique https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Société_des_auteurs,_composite... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_Modernization_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_Modernization_Act [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directive_on_Copyright_in_the_Digital_Single_Market https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directive_on_Copyright_in_the_...
zzzcpan 7y ago
> I agree, that the tools and practices used today are crude and in many cases unfair, Was this ever not like that? I'm pretty sure copyright was never even meant for people to have useful enforceable rights to protect their creations, it was always meant for corporations, i.e. the usual business of them pushing legislation to have more power and protection against competition for rich to get richer and all that.
- doh 7y ago
  That's actually not true. The original laws were enacted exactly to protect individual composers. Copyright law is old, more than 300 years old [0]. Corporations exploited it the most, as they do with any opportunity, but that doesn't mean the law and our perception of the concept doesn't evolve or can't evolve. GPS was never meant to be useful for general population. ARPANET was never meant for it either. The market finds its way. I believe, that we are entering an age of attribution and copyright is just the very first step. [0] https://societe.sacem.fr/en/history https://societe.sacem.fr/en/history
redthrow 7y ago
>> Considering that we are trying to automate all manual labor in the not so distant future, copyright is more and not less important to our society. The number of people who derive meaningful income from their copyrighted work is and has been very small, and only a small fraction of that (e.g. Disney) derives a fortune by enforcing draconian copyright laws, so it's not clear if this will change in the future. Also jobs like janitors and nannies won't be automated for a very long time, and it's not clear if the society benefits more from having yet another person writing a novel or making a movie rather than having the same person clean or take care of children.
- doh 7y ago
  >> The number of people who derive meaningful income from their copyrighted work is and has been very small Depends on how you define it. For instance more than 500k people make on average around $8k/month. I'm not saying it's a mind blowing number, but it's also not little. >> only a small fraction of that (e.g. Disney) derives a fortune by enforcing draconian copyright laws, so it's not clear if this will change in the future. It's true that only handful of creators, mostly large companies, earn outsized returns. That however doesn't mean that small creators don't matter nor it means that copyright can't be used for their benefits. >> Also jobs like janitors and nannies won't be automated for a very long time, and it's not clear if the society benefits more from having yet another person writing a novel or making a movie rather than having the same person clean or take care of children. The challenge with applying automation on today's world is that we are having hard times to see the "ripple" effect of the change. For instance, if most people don't have to "work" in the traditional sense, then they don't need nannies. Janitors' jobs is becoming fairly automated even today (autonomous vacuums, ...) and the progress will only continue.

by doh 7y ago

riffraff 7y ago

> Copyright is first and foremost an attribution are you sure about this? It seems to me copyright as it is in common law countries is first and foremost about _controlling distribution_. It's literally the right to make copies. AFAIU, there is a difference from common law countries, for example. E.g. in Italy an author cannot ever lose the status of author of a work, even if the the distribution rights are owned by someone else.

doh 7y ago
Copyright as a legal concept is fairly old and the perception on it changed a lot within the history. For instance SACEM [0] was established 170 years ago in France. The general idea was to allow creators and rights holders to control their distribution but recent changes, in US MMA [1] and in EU the Copyright Directive [2] are now moving from focusing on distribution to getting creators paid. If we look far enough in the future, copyright will mean something very different that what it means today. But I'm biased, considering that I built company in this space. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Société_des_auteurs,_compositeurs_et_éditeurs_de_musique https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Société_des_auteurs,_composite... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_Modernization_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_Modernization_Act [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directive_on_Copyright_in_the_Digital_Single_Market https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directive_on_Copyright_in_the_...

zzzcpan 7y ago

> I agree, that the tools and practices used today are crude and in many cases unfair, Was this ever not like that? I'm pretty sure copyright was never even meant for people to have useful enforceable rights to protect their creations, it was always meant for corporations, i.e. the usual business of them pushing legislation to have more power and protection against competition for rich to get richer and all that.

doh 7y ago
That's actually not true. The original laws were enacted exactly to protect individual composers. Copyright law is old, more than 300 years old [0]. Corporations exploited it the most, as they do with any opportunity, but that doesn't mean the law and our perception of the concept doesn't evolve or can't evolve. GPS was never meant to be useful for general population. ARPANET was never meant for it either. The market finds its way. I believe, that we are entering an age of attribution and copyright is just the very first step. [0] https://societe.sacem.fr/en/history https://societe.sacem.fr/en/history

redthrow 7y ago

>> Considering that we are trying to automate all manual labor in the not so distant future, copyright is more and not less important to our society. The number of people who derive meaningful income from their copyrighted work is and has been very small, and only a small fraction of that (e.g. Disney) derives a fortune by enforcing draconian copyright laws, so it's not clear if this will change in the future. Also jobs like janitors and nannies won't be automated for a very long time, and it's not clear if the society benefits more from having yet another person writing a novel or making a movie rather than having the same person clean or take care of children.

doh 7y ago
>> The number of people who derive meaningful income from their copyrighted work is and has been very small Depends on how you define it. For instance more than 500k people make on average around $8k/month. I'm not saying it's a mind blowing number, but it's also not little. >> only a small fraction of that (e.g. Disney) derives a fortune by enforcing draconian copyright laws, so it's not clear if this will change in the future. It's true that only handful of creators, mostly large companies, earn outsized returns. That however doesn't mean that small creators don't matter nor it means that copyright can't be used for their benefits. >> Also jobs like janitors and nannies won't be automated for a very long time, and it's not clear if the society benefits more from having yet another person writing a novel or making a movie rather than having the same person clean or take care of children. The challenge with applying automation on today's world is that we are having hard times to see the "ripple" effect of the change. For instance, if most people don't have to "work" in the traditional sense, then they don't need nannies. Janitors' jobs is becoming fairly automated even today (autonomous vacuums, ...) and the progress will only continue.