5 ms·

I am not sure I agree with this statement in the absolute. I think about art, and artists as a musician myself. One advantage of copyright is that it does, ind

by memset 6y ago

I am not sure I agree with this statement in the absolute. I think about art, and artists as a musician myself. One advantage of copyright is that it does, indeed, give artists recourse when people use their works without compensation. The photographer whose picture was copied and pasted onto an advertisement. The musician trying to sell their first album. You could argue that litigation is too costly for an individual, which may be true, but this is one reason artists choose to sell their images via Getty. They gain access to a marketplace, and Getty handles licensing and enforcement, which makes it easier for artists to be fairly compensated for their work. This isn’t absolute either: there is enforcement too aggressive (ask any Youtube creator), or limits too long (Disney). But I cannot help but think that, with no copyright whatsoever, then the little guys will have a harder time protecting themselves from folks who would otherwise like to use that art without compensating the creator.

hyper_reality 6y ago
The truth is somewhere between your statement and parent's, in my opinion. Copyright is necessary but the laws today are draconian and far too extensive. For works since 1978, copyright lasts for the entire length of the author's life, plus an additional 70 years. The "Mickey Mouse" protection act (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act) increased this even further for some works. There's a need to allow artists and writers to make money from their creations and not just get their work instantly reproduced by pirates. At the same time, it's in the public interest for their work to become widely available after a short period of protection. I don't know exactly how long that period should be to maximally benefit society, but 15 years sounds a lot more reasonable than life+75 years. It's absolutely absurd that Arthur Conan Doyle's distant ancestors can today be suing people for creating derivatives of Sherlock Holmes, a literary character conceived in 1887. Sherlock Holmes belongs to the public, not some greedy relatives trying to leech a living from him.
- cturner 6y ago
  "There's a need to allow artists and writers to make money" The current system does not satisfy that standard. Artists and writers don't make money due to far-reaching copyright. Musicians make money by selling tickets to concerts and contract performances. Journalists make money from newspaper pay-walls and advertising.
  - bruckie 6y ago
    Your music argument is plausible, but the journalism one doesn't hold water: if there were no copyright, it would only take one paywall subscriber to copy the contents to a paywall-free site (e.g. wsj.com -> freewsjarticles.com), and poof: journalists aren't making money anymore.
    - cturner 6y ago
      I used to work for an education-resources publisher that had a problem with lecturers photocopying their books. We created a portal with value-add features, and put the ordering-user ID on every page of every book. Photocopying all but disappeared once those measures were in place - people valued and used the bundled services. The institutions that were buying the books were slow to ship IT services. But we were fast. The lecturers started asking us for forums and work-submission and marking-workflow features to help them work with their students, and we did. (The software lead had an idea that users should be able to just store and share stuff on the site. She moved to Canada during the project to join a new team, and did the same thing for the game they were running. They noticed that a lot of people were using the feature to share photos. So they focused on that, and that became Flickr.) Newspapers are already well down the road towards this future - as part of subscription you get comments sections, and forums, and dating sites, and wine clubs. Still, I see significant unused potential. Each newspaper should view itself as some mix of bloomberg/twitter/linkedin, and encourage interaction between its members audience.
ghaff 6y ago
In a no copyright world, I assume you would have aggregators who vacuum up photos, books, etc. and index/package/curate them in a way that they're more easily discoverable and consumable by the people willing to pay for that service. Without paying anything to the original creators. You've seen this on a small scale in areas like clipart. It's not a very lucrative business though and it does mean you only have creators with either "passion" or money.
psychoslave 6y ago
>I am not sure I agree with this statement in the absolute. I don’t know, you see, sometimes I have some doubts about my uncertainty. But should I trust my memory about what might have happened in my head in the past? >I think about art, and artists as a musician myself. One advantage of copyright is that it does, indeed, give artists recourse when people use their works without compensation. Practices of art and culture, including music, long predate any copyright law. Or even money, most likely (an archeologist will tell you that with more confidence about the veracity of such a claim). According monopoly of exploitation rarely turn into proliferation of diversity, most of the time it will fall into feedback loop where a few entities will "take it all" and widely spread the "best fit for all". >The photographer whose picture was copied and pasted onto an advertisement. There are different topic here. In the French droit d’auteur, you have a separation of "moral rights" – including who is granted to publish your work in which context – and "patrimonial rights" – how monetization of the work is managed.
- ghaff 6y ago
  Copyright mostly only became relevant once it become practical to mass produce works, e.g. with a printing press. (Which was, although it took some time, the proximate cause of copyright law in Europe.)
  - psychoslave 6y ago
    The term copyright misguides your assumptions I think. Apparition of printers in China, long before Westen rediscovered it, didn't lead to that kind of laws. I mean, cultural and social structures also play a meaningful part on what is enacted. The topic behind copyright is not simply about copy, it's about who benefit of some exclusive privileges on cultural works and what kind of social inequalities are enforcable by law.
logicOnly 6y ago
As a little guy, I can't afford a lawyer, copyright only hurts me.
cturner 6y ago
There is a documented situation where Getty attempted to charge an artist for their own work (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22340178 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22340178). The only reason we know of that particular case is because they happened to charge the original creator. The dynamic is ripe for corruption. If Getty failed to report all the works they were collecting for, and instead siphoned money off on the side, how would anyone know?

by memset 6y ago

hyper_reality 6y ago

The truth is somewhere between your statement and parent's, in my opinion. Copyright is necessary but the laws today are draconian and far too extensive. For works since 1978, copyright lasts for the entire length of the author's life, plus an additional 70 years. The "Mickey Mouse" protection act (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act) increased this even further for some works. There's a need to allow artists and writers to make money from their creations and not just get their work instantly reproduced by pirates. At the same time, it's in the public interest for their work to become widely available after a short period of protection. I don't know exactly how long that period should be to maximally benefit society, but 15 years sounds a lot more reasonable than life+75 years. It's absolutely absurd that Arthur Conan Doyle's distant ancestors can today be suing people for creating derivatives of Sherlock Holmes, a literary character conceived in 1887. Sherlock Holmes belongs to the public, not some greedy relatives trying to leech a living from him.

cturner 6y ago
"There's a need to allow artists and writers to make money" The current system does not satisfy that standard. Artists and writers don't make money due to far-reaching copyright. Musicians make money by selling tickets to concerts and contract performances. Journalists make money from newspaper pay-walls and advertising.
- bruckie 6y ago
  Your music argument is plausible, but the journalism one doesn't hold water: if there were no copyright, it would only take one paywall subscriber to copy the contents to a paywall-free site (e.g. wsj.com -> freewsjarticles.com), and poof: journalists aren't making money anymore.
  - cturner 6y ago
    I used to work for an education-resources publisher that had a problem with lecturers photocopying their books. We created a portal with value-add features, and put the ordering-user ID on every page of every book. Photocopying all but disappeared once those measures were in place - people valued and used the bundled services. The institutions that were buying the books were slow to ship IT services. But we were fast. The lecturers started asking us for forums and work-submission and marking-workflow features to help them work with their students, and we did. (The software lead had an idea that users should be able to just store and share stuff on the site. She moved to Canada during the project to join a new team, and did the same thing for the game they were running. They noticed that a lot of people were using the feature to share photos. So they focused on that, and that became Flickr.) Newspapers are already well down the road towards this future - as part of subscription you get comments sections, and forums, and dating sites, and wine clubs. Still, I see significant unused potential. Each newspaper should view itself as some mix of bloomberg/twitter/linkedin, and encourage interaction between its members audience.

ghaff 6y ago

In a no copyright world, I assume you would have aggregators who vacuum up photos, books, etc. and index/package/curate them in a way that they're more easily discoverable and consumable by the people willing to pay for that service. Without paying anything to the original creators. You've seen this on a small scale in areas like clipart. It's not a very lucrative business though and it does mean you only have creators with either "passion" or money.

psychoslave 6y ago

>I am not sure I agree with this statement in the absolute. I don’t know, you see, sometimes I have some doubts about my uncertainty. But should I trust my memory about what might have happened in my head in the past? >I think about art, and artists as a musician myself. One advantage of copyright is that it does, indeed, give artists recourse when people use their works without compensation. Practices of art and culture, including music, long predate any copyright law. Or even money, most likely (an archeologist will tell you that with more confidence about the veracity of such a claim). According monopoly of exploitation rarely turn into proliferation of diversity, most of the time it will fall into feedback loop where a few entities will "take it all" and widely spread the "best fit for all". >The photographer whose picture was copied and pasted onto an advertisement. There are different topic here. In the French droit d’auteur, you have a separation of "moral rights" – including who is granted to publish your work in which context – and "patrimonial rights" – how monetization of the work is managed.

ghaff 6y ago
Copyright mostly only became relevant once it become practical to mass produce works, e.g. with a printing press. (Which was, although it took some time, the proximate cause of copyright law in Europe.)
- psychoslave 6y ago
  The term copyright misguides your assumptions I think. Apparition of printers in China, long before Westen rediscovered it, didn't lead to that kind of laws. I mean, cultural and social structures also play a meaningful part on what is enacted. The topic behind copyright is not simply about copy, it's about who benefit of some exclusive privileges on cultural works and what kind of social inequalities are enforcable by law.

logicOnly 6y ago

As a little guy, I can't afford a lawyer, copyright only hurts me.

cturner 6y ago

There is a documented situation where Getty attempted to charge an artist for their own work (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22340178 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22340178). The only reason we know of that particular case is because they happened to charge the original creator. The dynamic is ripe for corruption. If Getty failed to report all the works they were collecting for, and instead siphoned money off on the side, how would anyone know?