3 ms·

I see no public good served by an author being allowed to decide what other people do with their characters. Should Tolkien have the right to constrain what pe

by Eliezer 16y ago

I see no public good served by an author being allowed to decide what other people do with their characters. Should Tolkien have the right to constrain what people imagine with his characters? The right to constrain what stories I tell my friend? Never mind physical possibility - if Tolkien had left a note saying that nobody was ever allowed to imagine Legolas/Eowyn, would you obey that note in the privacy of your imagination, because you thought it was his right? IMO copyrights, like patents, should have a mandatory licensing rule - it should not be possible to say "you can't do that", only ever "I get a cut of the profits." (This wouldn't fix either system, which allow for copyright and patent of many things that just shouldn't be patented, but it'd be an incremental improvement.)

roel_v 16y ago
Not everything is about 'the public good being served'. That was my point. Individual freedom usually trumps the public good, imo. Thinking about things has never been under (serious) discussion. The line is roughly at the point where 'public performances' or 'reproduction for the public' is done. Of course you can argue about where things are exactly 'public', but you can do that with anything.
- Eliezer 16y ago
  Sentence one says that there's no public good being served. Succeeding sentences argue that there's no individual right either.
- natnat 16y ago
  Individual freedom against the public good isn't entirely what's at stake here. What's at stake is the individual freedom of the original author against the individual freedom of other authors who want to use similar characters, and the individual freedoms of the potential consumers of the derivative work. It's nice to talk about "individual freedom", but you're obscuring the truth in cases like this. It's not about the rights of individuals against some faceless collective. It's about freedoms for one person trumping freedoms of the other. If you restrict the use of any ideas from an original work by anyone else, you're severely restricting the speech of others. If I need your permission before I can write about the characters in your book, what's to stop you from disallowing anyone to write bad reviews of your book? This is an important issue, especially when the laws are vague and you have a massive legal war chest. Your expensive lawyers can argue about where things become "public", too, so me telling my friends about how much your book sucks could get me sued. Overly strict copyright laws have serious chilling effects on free speech. Free speech may be a collective good, but it is also an individual freedom, too, and I think my freedom to speak is more important than anyone else's freedom to silence that speech. Everything can be cast in terms of individual freedom, but more often than not, increasing one person's freedom means decreasing someone else's. That's why you can't just say that individual freedom is necessarily more important than the public good.
  - roel_v 16y ago
    Nonsense, because the supposed 'freedoms' of the others (anyone except the author) hinge on the author creating it in the first place. They're all derived from the work of the original author, giving that author ownership of his creations, and therefore the right to determine what happens to his property. I'm not sure where your 'free speech' argument is coming from. Reproducing the words (or music or whatever) of someone else is not free speech. Free speech is about ideas, copyright about a specific incarnation of ideas.
    - natnat 16y ago
      I don't see what creating something has to do with owning it. If I have kids, they are not my property, even though their existence entirely depends on me. The whole point of copyright is that the government decided that people would be more willing to create works of value if they economically protected the creators of those works. This was designed specifically to benefit the public good at the expense of individual freedom. Copyright does nothing but restrict freedom, but it does it so that people will have an incentive to create things of public value. The free speech argument comes in whenever a content creator has the power to keep other people from saying certain things because he doesn't like them, rather than because he deserves to capitalize on the use of his content. The ideas you create don't belong to you; only the right to make money from them does.
- joe_the_user 16y ago
  Humorously enough, the "Individual freedom" you desire consists entirely of the freedom to prevent others from doing things (translate works, create derivative things). Thus you are saying public laws should exist to give private individuals the right to restrict other private individuals...
  - roel_v 16y ago
    This is just phrasing it in a disingenuous way. My 'freedom' to own my car consists of the my right to 'restrict' others from taking it as they see fit. My 'freedom' to walk around consists of preventing others from beating and locking me up. The whole concept of ownership means that you can restrict others from doing things that infringe upon that freedom. So yes of course law exists to regulate what individuals can do to each other or each others' property.
  - pbhjpbhj 16y ago
    >Thus you are saying public laws should exist to give private individuals the right to restrict other private individuals... Did you stop to think about the repercussions of your last statement? Should you be allowed to stop me taking your things, parking on your land or living in your home?
- DennisP 16y ago
  Not everything, but the public good is in fact what copyright is about: "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries" (U.S. Constitution, Article 1, Section 8)

by Eliezer 16y ago

roel_v 16y ago

Not everything is about 'the public good being served'. That was my point. Individual freedom usually trumps the public good, imo. Thinking about things has never been under (serious) discussion. The line is roughly at the point where 'public performances' or 'reproduction for the public' is done. Of course you can argue about where things are exactly 'public', but you can do that with anything.

Eliezer 16y ago
Sentence one says that there's no public good being served. Succeeding sentences argue that there's no individual right either.
natnat 16y ago
Individual freedom against the public good isn't entirely what's at stake here. What's at stake is the individual freedom of the original author against the individual freedom of other authors who want to use similar characters, and the individual freedoms of the potential consumers of the derivative work. It's nice to talk about "individual freedom", but you're obscuring the truth in cases like this. It's not about the rights of individuals against some faceless collective. It's about freedoms for one person trumping freedoms of the other. If you restrict the use of any ideas from an original work by anyone else, you're severely restricting the speech of others. If I need your permission before I can write about the characters in your book, what's to stop you from disallowing anyone to write bad reviews of your book? This is an important issue, especially when the laws are vague and you have a massive legal war chest. Your expensive lawyers can argue about where things become "public", too, so me telling my friends about how much your book sucks could get me sued. Overly strict copyright laws have serious chilling effects on free speech. Free speech may be a collective good, but it is also an individual freedom, too, and I think my freedom to speak is more important than anyone else's freedom to silence that speech. Everything can be cast in terms of individual freedom, but more often than not, increasing one person's freedom means decreasing someone else's. That's why you can't just say that individual freedom is necessarily more important than the public good.
- roel_v 16y ago
  Nonsense, because the supposed 'freedoms' of the others (anyone except the author) hinge on the author creating it in the first place. They're all derived from the work of the original author, giving that author ownership of his creations, and therefore the right to determine what happens to his property. I'm not sure where your 'free speech' argument is coming from. Reproducing the words (or music or whatever) of someone else is not free speech. Free speech is about ideas, copyright about a specific incarnation of ideas.
  - natnat 16y ago
    I don't see what creating something has to do with owning it. If I have kids, they are not my property, even though their existence entirely depends on me. The whole point of copyright is that the government decided that people would be more willing to create works of value if they economically protected the creators of those works. This was designed specifically to benefit the public good at the expense of individual freedom. Copyright does nothing but restrict freedom, but it does it so that people will have an incentive to create things of public value. The free speech argument comes in whenever a content creator has the power to keep other people from saying certain things because he doesn't like them, rather than because he deserves to capitalize on the use of his content. The ideas you create don't belong to you; only the right to make money from them does.
joe_the_user 16y ago
Humorously enough, the "Individual freedom" you desire consists entirely of the freedom to prevent others from doing things (translate works, create derivative things). Thus you are saying public laws should exist to give private individuals the right to restrict other private individuals...
- roel_v 16y ago
  This is just phrasing it in a disingenuous way. My 'freedom' to own my car consists of the my right to 'restrict' others from taking it as they see fit. My 'freedom' to walk around consists of preventing others from beating and locking me up. The whole concept of ownership means that you can restrict others from doing things that infringe upon that freedom. So yes of course law exists to regulate what individuals can do to each other or each others' property.
- pbhjpbhj 16y ago
  >Thus you are saying public laws should exist to give private individuals the right to restrict other private individuals... Did you stop to think about the repercussions of your last statement? Should you be allowed to stop me taking your things, parking on your land or living in your home?
DennisP 16y ago
Not everything, but the public good is in fact what copyright is about: "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries" (U.S. Constitution, Article 1, Section 8)