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>> 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 numbe

>> 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.

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.