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If you want to retain a professional creative class then you must implement a system that allows them to benefit from the works they produce. To rely on people

If you want to retain a professional creative class then you must implement a system that allows them to benefit from the works they produce. To rely on people producing things producing things without economic incentive is essentially the argument for anarchosocialism. It might work to some small degree for passion projects, but what the overall volume of creative production would collapse as creatives would have to find other ways to support themselves.

ineedasername 7y ago
> producing things without economic incentive is essentially the argument for anarchosocialism. Which could work if we were to implement something like universal basic income, or progress to an agalmic economic society. I'm not optimistic on either of those.
WalterBright 7y ago
As usual, we can look at history for answers. In the 19th century in Germany, Germany had no copyright or patent laws. There was an explosion of creativity and technological progress, and Germany became the European leader economically and technologically.
- azernik 7y ago
  The lack of patent laws was very clearly a positive for Germany; the argument for those is IMO much weaker than for copyright. Especially for developing, backward economies (early-19th-century US, late-19th-century Germany, and contemporary China), ignoring foreign patents is very useful for speeding up technology transfer from more advanced economies; within 19th-century US there's some limited evidence for patents being useful as a way of paying local, small producers to publish their innovations widely, but the domestic Chinese quasi-open-source "shanzhai" electronic ecosystem produces quite a lot of its own innovation while completely disregarding patent rules. But the evidence for lack of copyright being useful in that period is very weak: https://www.wired.com/2010/08/copyright-germany-britain/ https://www.wired.com/2010/08/copyright-germany-britain/ Most of the great German authors of the period had to hold other jobs to support themselves, which made completing works slow and halting. Goethe supported himself as a courtier/bureaucrat/officer of the Duchy of Saxe-Weimar until his mid-40s, Hegel was a teacher and academic administrator, Kleist barely made a living off of of publishing a magazine and stints in Prussian government service, etc.
  - zozbot234 7y ago
    > Most of the great German authors of the period had to hold other jobs to support themselves, which made completing works slow and halting. And yet, they were nonetheless able to be great authors. Now, contrast German authors of the 20th century, when copyright law was adopted. There's just no comparison.
    - azernik 7y ago
      There are MANY things that changed in that period.
  - WalterBright 7y ago
    Most authors today have to hold other jobs to support themselves. In fact it's likely the vast majority. I know several successful authors. None of them make enough off of the books to live on. But what they have done is leverage the status the books conferred into lucrative careers.
  - scoopertrooper 7y ago
    > Especially for developing, backward economies (early-19th-century US, late-19th-century Germany, and contemporary China), ignoring foreign patents is very useful for speeding up technology transfer from more advanced economies There is no doubt that copycats would benefit enormously from an absence of patent protection, but innovators would doubtless invest less capital in innovation if they could protect it. Germany, U.S., and Chinese copycats were about to free-ride on the license fees paid by English manufacturers to patent holders. If the English never established a patent law, then there would be nothing for them copy and the overall welfare of society would be reduced.

ineedasername 7y ago

> producing things without economic incentive is essentially the argument for anarchosocialism. Which could work if we were to implement something like universal basic income, or progress to an agalmic economic society. I'm not optimistic on either of those.

WalterBright 7y ago

As usual, we can look at history for answers. In the 19th century in Germany, Germany had no copyright or patent laws. There was an explosion of creativity and technological progress, and Germany became the European leader economically and technologically.

azernik 7y ago
The lack of patent laws was very clearly a positive for Germany; the argument for those is IMO much weaker than for copyright. Especially for developing, backward economies (early-19th-century US, late-19th-century Germany, and contemporary China), ignoring foreign patents is very useful for speeding up technology transfer from more advanced economies; within 19th-century US there's some limited evidence for patents being useful as a way of paying local, small producers to publish their innovations widely, but the domestic Chinese quasi-open-source "shanzhai" electronic ecosystem produces quite a lot of its own innovation while completely disregarding patent rules. But the evidence for lack of copyright being useful in that period is very weak: https://www.wired.com/2010/08/copyright-germany-britain/ https://www.wired.com/2010/08/copyright-germany-britain/ Most of the great German authors of the period had to hold other jobs to support themselves, which made completing works slow and halting. Goethe supported himself as a courtier/bureaucrat/officer of the Duchy of Saxe-Weimar until his mid-40s, Hegel was a teacher and academic administrator, Kleist barely made a living off of of publishing a magazine and stints in Prussian government service, etc.
- zozbot234 7y ago
  > Most of the great German authors of the period had to hold other jobs to support themselves, which made completing works slow and halting. And yet, they were nonetheless able to be great authors. Now, contrast German authors of the 20th century, when copyright law was adopted. There's just no comparison.
  - azernik 7y ago
    There are MANY things that changed in that period.
- WalterBright 7y ago
  Most authors today have to hold other jobs to support themselves. In fact it's likely the vast majority. I know several successful authors. None of them make enough off of the books to live on. But what they have done is leverage the status the books conferred into lucrative careers.
- scoopertrooper 7y ago
  > Especially for developing, backward economies (early-19th-century US, late-19th-century Germany, and contemporary China), ignoring foreign patents is very useful for speeding up technology transfer from more advanced economies There is no doubt that copycats would benefit enormously from an absence of patent protection, but innovators would doubtless invest less capital in innovation if they could protect it. Germany, U.S., and Chinese copycats were about to free-ride on the license fees paid by English manufacturers to patent holders. If the English never established a patent law, then there would be nothing for them copy and the overall welfare of society would be reduced.