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> I'm better off, and you're no worse off. In an "ideal" society, the free sharing of knowledge would be not just allowed, but encouraged. I agree that theft o
by jjcon 6y ago
> I'm better off, and you're no worse off. In an "ideal" society, the free sharing of knowledge would be not just allowed, but encouraged.
I agree that theft of digital goods is not equivalent to physical goods but abolition of copyright does not follow from that fact nor does it follow that theft of intellectual property is not possible.
I also agree this is an important conversation to have. The whole idea around copyright is to encourage the creation of intellectual property. If there is a fundamentally better way to do it that idea should flourish but I have yet to hear a realistic alternative.
> I imagine there's been measurable harm to our society's cultural and scientific advancement because copyright forces us to recreate others' work instead of building off of it.
I would argue that the damage from having no copyright protections would be unquestionably worse than the trade offs they bring. People would of course still create, but so many works would simply not exist if there was no way to protect intellectual property.
Certainly there are minutiae of copyright that have gone too far in protections but that doesn’t mean the system itself should be done away with. The modern world created this system knowing full well there were trade offs.
- adamsea 6y agoI think if you talked to most authors they would have strong feelings that there need to be some legal means to ensure they are compensated for their work, and that someone else doesn't straight-up copy their novel, and then publish it and make a bundle. I do totally agree that copyright is messed up, big-time. To be honest I'm not sure that "free" sharing of knowledge really exists. Even in scientific communities I imagine certain knowledge is held back until, say, it's ready to be published so the scientists can get first credit. And so on.
- blacksmith_tb 6y agoIsn't that only getting halfway there? No one could "make a bundle" from copying my work if everything could be copied freely (including me, without some other way to get paid). I agree that authors (and musicians, and artists, etc.) would like to be paid for their work, though currently it seems like publishing companies manage to channel most of that money into their own pockets instead (and the costs of 'publishing' and 'distributing' a digital work are certainly a lot lower than a physical copy, yet somehow their prices are often the same).
- adamsea 6y agoNot quite sure what you mean, but imho the key statement in what you said is this: > I agree that authors (and musicians, and artists, etc.) would like to be paid for their work : )
- tacocataco 6y ago"The whole idea around copyright is to encourage the creation of intellectual property. If there is a fundamentally better way to do it that idea should flourish but I have yet to hear a realistic alternative." How about a basic income so the artists stop starving?