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Information should be free to share and copy, but not at a profit if it infringes on the owner of the IP. That’s VERY short of maximalism. That is a radical ref

Information should be free to share and copy, but not at a profit if it infringes on the owner of the IP. That’s VERY short of maximalism. That is a radical reform. Megaupload employees and owners uploaded pirated content, and profited hugely. Not small margins—they made millions. I’m against YouTubes, Spotifys, and even megauploads screwing content creators. Tech doesn’t have the right to assume ownership of the world via content platforms. All content production is struggling under the glut of technological wealth extraction via platforms. A good copyright implementation would help avoid this. It’s nothing like what we have, but the concept of copyright is not the same as the abusive system we know. I feel like you are railing against copyright the way conservatives rail against socialism. Doing so mischaracterizes the sensible arguments that are classified as such. The goal should be to promote diverse content creation by allowing creators (Not their platforms or corporate ownership) to be compensated, and to simultaneously allow for cultural exchange with concepts like free use and limited copyright durations, and by protecting/promoting library lending. Such things are possible, and I think optimal.

nybble41 6y ago
Every single sentence in your post is pro-copyright. I get it, you support a more limited form of copyright than we have right now. Just don't go around calling yourself "as anti-copyright … as anyone you would ever meet". Especially not to someone who is actually anti-copyright. I don't have to look around to find an obvious counter-example. It's me. > Information should be free to share and copy, but not at a profit if it infringes on the owner of the IP. That sounds like what the Open Source Definition would classify as discrimination based on field of endeavour. Terms like that are way more trouble than they're worth. If anyone can share and copy the content at cost, the only way to earn a profit is to provide some value-added service. Which means you're not profiting from the content, but rather from the service you've added on top. I'm not sure why you would have an issue with that. > Megaupload employees and owners uploaded pirated content, and profited hugely. Not small margins—they made millions. That's only because competition for hosting and indexing services was severely limited by copyright. I don't see the relevance to the scenario you're describing where there are no restrictions on (non-profit) sharing or copying. Their margins would be basically zero under those circumstances, or at least no more than any other hosting service. Any profit they did make would be due entirely to their own efforts.

nybble41 6y ago

Every single sentence in your post is pro-copyright. I get it, you support a more limited form of copyright than we have right now. Just don't go around calling yourself "as anti-copyright … as anyone you would ever meet". Especially not to someone who is actually anti-copyright. I don't have to look around to find an obvious counter-example. It's me. > Information should be free to share and copy, but not at a profit if it infringes on the owner of the IP. That sounds like what the Open Source Definition would classify as discrimination based on field of endeavour. Terms like that are way more trouble than they're worth. If anyone can share and copy the content at cost, the only way to earn a profit is to provide some value-added service. Which means you're not profiting from the content, but rather from the service you've added on top. I'm not sure why you would have an issue with that. > Megaupload employees and owners uploaded pirated content, and profited hugely. Not small margins—they made millions. That's only because competition for hosting and indexing services was severely limited by copyright. I don't see the relevance to the scenario you're describing where there are no restrictions on (non-profit) sharing or copying. Their margins would be basically zero under those circumstances, or at least no more than any other hosting service. Any profit they did make would be due entirely to their own efforts.