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Thank you for providing a perfect illustration of the is/ought fallacy. You are saying that copyright laws exist. I am saying that they should not exist because

Thank you for providing a perfect illustration of the is/ought fallacy. You are saying that copyright laws exist. I am saying that they should not exist because they are unjust and logically incoherent. These points are not in conflict. The fact that copyright is semantically different from ownership is the entire point. Ownership and exclusive control over physical property have a just and rational basis in scarcity. Copyright does not.

kube-system 7y ago
The concept of copyright absolutely does have a rational basis in scarcity. Creative works take a substantial investment of time and/or money to create. The idea that creators shouldn't have the right to control their works is wildly radical -- even more than the FSF's view. Even the concept of copyleft relies on the right of the creator to impose licensing on their creative works. If copyrights didn't exist, licenses that require source to be shared, like GPL, couldn't exist. You're well entitled to your opinion, but I'm glad the world doesn't work that way, because things like the restrictive clauses in GPL have been very good for the world.
- nybble41 7y ago
  > Creative works take a substantial investment of time and/or money to create. That's the labor which is scarce. Not copies of the copyrighted work. I already said people who create things should be paid for that labor—or more to the point, have to be paid if you want them to continue to create things. That does not imply that they deserve to control what others do with the work after it's been produced and published. That was just an expedient method chosen to encourage "the sciences" (though in practice it's been applied more to entertainment). There are better ways. > If copyrights didn't exist, licenses that require source to be shared, like GPL, couldn't exist. The GPL was created as a counterbalance to copyright. In a world without copyright there never would have been any need for it. Moreover, permissive licenses like MIT and BSD have had their share of success even without a requirement to share source code for modifications. > The idea that creators shouldn't have the right to control their works is wildly radical -- even more than the FSF's view. It's not really all that radical. Copyright itself is a relatively recent invention and was originally designed as a means of censorship and protectionism for publishers. Before that there was no practical means for an author to control distribution of their work, or any expectation that they should be able to do so. The manual duplication of notable works was routine, and you wouldn't find those scribes begging the author's permission. In more modern terms, the popularity of file sharing certainly suggests that a very large fraction of the population doesn't act like they believe authors should be able to control the distribution of their works once they're published. Copyright is mainly popular among those who directly benefit from it, much like any other subsidy.
  - kube-system 7y ago
    > I already said people who create things should be paid for that labor—or more to the point, have to be paid if you want them to continue to create things. > There are better ways. Like what, paying for labor instead of the work itself? That may work well (and already does) for more commoditized/custom-purpose/one-time-use creative works, but how do we apply something like that to something like recorded-media entertainment? Prepay for Taylor Swift's next album on Kickstarter?
    - nybble41 7y ago
      > Like what, paying for labor instead of the work itself? Yes, exactly. There is no reason why a Kickstarter or Patreon model wouldn't work for recorded-media entertainment. Those approaches have already been used for things which are much more labor-intensive than music albums. Artists with an established brand and fan following have some additional options, such as limited-edition merchandise or signed prints. Scarce physical goods that can't just be duplicated because their value is derived from their providence.

kube-system 7y ago

The concept of copyright absolutely does have a rational basis in scarcity. Creative works take a substantial investment of time and/or money to create. The idea that creators shouldn't have the right to control their works is wildly radical -- even more than the FSF's view. Even the concept of copyleft relies on the right of the creator to impose licensing on their creative works. If copyrights didn't exist, licenses that require source to be shared, like GPL, couldn't exist. You're well entitled to your opinion, but I'm glad the world doesn't work that way, because things like the restrictive clauses in GPL have been very good for the world.

nybble41 7y ago
> Creative works take a substantial investment of time and/or money to create. That's the labor which is scarce. Not copies of the copyrighted work. I already said people who create things should be paid for that labor—or more to the point, have to be paid if you want them to continue to create things. That does not imply that they deserve to control what others do with the work after it's been produced and published. That was just an expedient method chosen to encourage "the sciences" (though in practice it's been applied more to entertainment). There are better ways. > If copyrights didn't exist, licenses that require source to be shared, like GPL, couldn't exist. The GPL was created as a counterbalance to copyright. In a world without copyright there never would have been any need for it. Moreover, permissive licenses like MIT and BSD have had their share of success even without a requirement to share source code for modifications. > The idea that creators shouldn't have the right to control their works is wildly radical -- even more than the FSF's view. It's not really all that radical. Copyright itself is a relatively recent invention and was originally designed as a means of censorship and protectionism for publishers. Before that there was no practical means for an author to control distribution of their work, or any expectation that they should be able to do so. The manual duplication of notable works was routine, and you wouldn't find those scribes begging the author's permission. In more modern terms, the popularity of file sharing certainly suggests that a very large fraction of the population doesn't act like they believe authors should be able to control the distribution of their works once they're published. Copyright is mainly popular among those who directly benefit from it, much like any other subsidy.
- kube-system 7y ago
  > I already said people who create things should be paid for that labor—or more to the point, have to be paid if you want them to continue to create things. > There are better ways. Like what, paying for labor instead of the work itself? That may work well (and already does) for more commoditized/custom-purpose/one-time-use creative works, but how do we apply something like that to something like recorded-media entertainment? Prepay for Taylor Swift's next album on Kickstarter?
  - nybble41 7y ago
    > Like what, paying for labor instead of the work itself? Yes, exactly. There is no reason why a Kickstarter or Patreon model wouldn't work for recorded-media entertainment. Those approaches have already been used for things which are much more labor-intensive than music albums. Artists with an established brand and fan following have some additional options, such as limited-edition merchandise or signed prints. Scarce physical goods that can't just be duplicated because their value is derived from their providence.