4 ms·

This idea, implied in your comment, that information should have the same legal treatment that a physical object it's not so obvious to me.

AmericanChopper 6y ago
As I stated in a different response, I don’t think there would be anything immoral about abolishing copyright in general (for newly created work at least). But if you did that then you would most certainly see much less people investing their time and money into creating it, I also imagine it would create a resurgence in draconian practices such as chained libraries. How does cinema-only releases sound to you? For both TV and movies, of course. However, whatever you think of such an idea, the people who created the content in question did so under conditions where the state had offered them copyright protection. To remove that protection from people who have already invested their time and money into creating content under those conditions, is simply to defraud them of that time and money, which for a lot of people could amount to their lives work.
- matheusmoreira 6y ago
  > To remove that protection from people who have already invested their time and money into creating content under those conditions, is simply to defraud them of that time and money, which for a lot of people could amount to their lives work. No. Laws can change unilaterally and society does not owe them anything. If they created something today and the law changed tomorrow thereby destroying the economic value of their investment, too bad. That's life. Copyright and its practically infinite duration defrauds the public out of works that by any reasonable estimate should already be in the public domain. Did Disney worry about that before spending its intellectual property profits on lobbyists in order to get the government to extend the duration of copyright? No. These creators and companies have already made an obscene amount of money, many times over their initial investment. Are we supposed to feel guilty about "defrauding" this industry by changing the laws that enable it?
  - AmericanChopper 6y ago
    Since this is the second time you’ve posted basically the same same comment in response to one of mine, I’ll just copy paste what I said last time. Perhaps you’ll respond to it this time? > Whether or not you think the existing copyright laws have exceeded their purpose is a completely different discussion, and one that is not at all related to this particular topic at all. Because the Internet Archive did not only violate copyright for content benefiting from whatever your opinion of excessive copyright is, they violated it for all the content they had. > No. Laws can change unilaterally and society does not owe them anything. Technically this is correct. The state is generally able to set whatever laws it likes. It was be a bit difficult in the USA as copyright is enshrined in the constitution. But there are examples in history of governments stripping all sorts of property rights from their citizens. It tends to go quite poorly though, for many reasons, but at least in part because people in that situation tend to view the government as stealing from them. If the government sets the law in such a way that people who do X will be entitled to Y, then people who did X would be rightly upset if the government summarily decided they were no longer entitled to Y. The only thing that would seperate such a scenario from legally actionable fraud is sovereign immunity. Most of the anti-copyright comments I’ve seen in this tread seem to really just be thinly veiled anti-private-property comments. So why not just come out and state your case if that’s what you’re getting at?
    - richardwhiuk 6y ago
      Copyright isn't guaranteed by the constitution. The ability for Congress to create copyright is guaranteed by the constitution. It would be perfectly fine, constitutionally for Congress to degree "there is no copyright". People being upset isn't a reason to remove a rule.
    - dragonwriter 6y ago
      > It was be a bit difficult in the USA as copyright is enshrined in the constitution. No, it's not. Like letters of marque and reprisal, copyright is something Congress is authorized to grant in the Constitution, but, also like letters of marque and reprisal, it's not something the Constitution gives anyone a right to expect Congress will grant them.

AmericanChopper 6y ago

As I stated in a different response, I don’t think there would be anything immoral about abolishing copyright in general (for newly created work at least). But if you did that then you would most certainly see much less people investing their time and money into creating it, I also imagine it would create a resurgence in draconian practices such as chained libraries. How does cinema-only releases sound to you? For both TV and movies, of course. However, whatever you think of such an idea, the people who created the content in question did so under conditions where the state had offered them copyright protection. To remove that protection from people who have already invested their time and money into creating content under those conditions, is simply to defraud them of that time and money, which for a lot of people could amount to their lives work.

matheusmoreira 6y ago
> To remove that protection from people who have already invested their time and money into creating content under those conditions, is simply to defraud them of that time and money, which for a lot of people could amount to their lives work. No. Laws can change unilaterally and society does not owe them anything. If they created something today and the law changed tomorrow thereby destroying the economic value of their investment, too bad. That's life. Copyright and its practically infinite duration defrauds the public out of works that by any reasonable estimate should already be in the public domain. Did Disney worry about that before spending its intellectual property profits on lobbyists in order to get the government to extend the duration of copyright? No. These creators and companies have already made an obscene amount of money, many times over their initial investment. Are we supposed to feel guilty about "defrauding" this industry by changing the laws that enable it?
- AmericanChopper 6y ago
  Since this is the second time you’ve posted basically the same same comment in response to one of mine, I’ll just copy paste what I said last time. Perhaps you’ll respond to it this time? > Whether or not you think the existing copyright laws have exceeded their purpose is a completely different discussion, and one that is not at all related to this particular topic at all. Because the Internet Archive did not only violate copyright for content benefiting from whatever your opinion of excessive copyright is, they violated it for all the content they had. > No. Laws can change unilaterally and society does not owe them anything. Technically this is correct. The state is generally able to set whatever laws it likes. It was be a bit difficult in the USA as copyright is enshrined in the constitution. But there are examples in history of governments stripping all sorts of property rights from their citizens. It tends to go quite poorly though, for many reasons, but at least in part because people in that situation tend to view the government as stealing from them. If the government sets the law in such a way that people who do X will be entitled to Y, then people who did X would be rightly upset if the government summarily decided they were no longer entitled to Y. The only thing that would seperate such a scenario from legally actionable fraud is sovereign immunity. Most of the anti-copyright comments I’ve seen in this tread seem to really just be thinly veiled anti-private-property comments. So why not just come out and state your case if that’s what you’re getting at?
  - richardwhiuk 6y ago
    Copyright isn't guaranteed by the constitution. The ability for Congress to create copyright is guaranteed by the constitution. It would be perfectly fine, constitutionally for Congress to degree "there is no copyright". People being upset isn't a reason to remove a rule.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > It was be a bit difficult in the USA as copyright is enshrined in the constitution. No, it's not. Like letters of marque and reprisal, copyright is something Congress is authorized to grant in the Constitution, but, also like letters of marque and reprisal, it's not something the Constitution gives anyone a right to expect Congress will grant them.