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Copyright doesn't just benefit huge corporations. For instance, without it, independent artists who rely on copying for distribution (authors, musicians, etc.)

Copyright doesn't just benefit huge corporations. For instance, without it, independent artists who rely on copying for distribution (authors, musicians, etc.) would find it much more difficult to make money off their work, mostly (IMO) because large corporate entities with large investments made in publication and distribution systems could simply take content and sell it themselves with zero obligation to the original creator(s). This process could be highly automated at scale, giving creators essentially zero chance to compete in the market. It's a bad idea. The thing about copyright law that needs reform is its bias toward the benefit of large corporate entities. Platforms' implementations of DMCA compliance allow "rights holders" to spam perjurious takedown requests en masse, garnishing the earnings of creators and legitimate rights holders in what can only be called (in addition to perjury) outright fraud. Companies like Github scrape the web for content, most of it copyrighted, and use it to construct new products for their own profit. Rare recitation events aside, I think their use case is legitimate fair use in the eyes of the law (and if you look at my comment history you'll see me vehemently arguing to that effect), but should it be? We don't seem to be asking that question, which is really disappointing--we're either complaining loudly and without substance, or blithely accepting the might-makes-right ethic as the central pillar of our IP law.

kingsuper20 5y ago
>Copyright doesn't just benefit huge corporations. For instance, without it, independent artists who rely on copying for distribution (authors, musicians, etc.) would find it much more difficult to make money off their work, That doesn't look like it's the point to me. ""[the United States Congress shall have power] To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right , to their respective Writings and Discoveries." " As I read that, copyright is there to 'promote progress', not to maximize gains. No doubt there is a million linear feet of case law that got us where we are. Honestly, I rather like this whole question of copilot. I solidly appreciate the brilliance of github as a honeypot.
- caconym_ 5y ago
  > To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right , to their respective Writings and Discoveries. What better way to promote said Progress than by making sure said Authors and Inventors can make enough money off their work to keep doing it? As written, it's a roundabout way to get at the instrumentality of capital, but if that's not what they had in mind then I'm not sure what they were getting at. Without copyright, a creator's rights to their own work aren't diminished; it's just that everyone else's are expanded to the same level. (I'd love to know if I'm way off base about this. I'm not a lawyer, and I'm sure it's been discussed to death.) > Honestly, I rather like this whole question of copilot. I solidly appreciate the brilliance of github as a honeypot. I think it's really cool, and I'd probably use it myself. As much as my favorite kinds of programming (e.g. writing experimental text editors) might not benefit from it, in my day job I sure would love to spend less time filling in boilerplate and looking up mundane API details. I don't mean to single Github out in my mention of big corporations benefiting from copyright law. Scraping vast quantities of copyrighted data to build new products is a common business model at this point, and--like other new IP-related paradigms enabled by modern information technology--I think it deserves a fresh look, being mindful of just what it is we're trying to accomplish with copyright law. As you say, it's not always obvious, even in written law.
  - stale2002 5y ago
    > What better way to promote said Progress There are a lot of better ways. Having more information being public and free, and usable by tools like this sounds like an excellent way of promoting progress.
    - caconym_ 5y ago
      Well, this is the current status quo. Automated scraping of copyrighted material for (arguably) transformative applications like Copilot is generally allowed under fair use, while non-transformative copying is considered infringement. If you want to strip creators of (default) exclusive rights to their work, that's a different conversation than the one around whether Copilot and similar applications fall under fair use. Both have been touched on in this subthread, but your comment seems to be conflating them in a way that doesn't follow directly from the discussion above it.
underwater 5y ago
The status quo for artists is pretty dismal. Across industries you have a few ultra-successful artists, a small group who can make a decent living and then a long tail of people who can't pay the rent. Gaming things out, I don't think copyright is really helping any of those artists or society as a whole. If it didn't exist, you'd still have breakout artists who make money through endorsements, live shows, and selling original copies of their work.
- caconym_ 5y ago
  I think it's kind of crazy to handwave away a whole class of creators who do make real money off selling their work (rather than being performers), even if it isn't big money or even enough to live on without supplemental income. And I categorically disagree that copyright isn't helping "any" of them. One counterexample is self-published authors on Amazon and similar services, many of whom do make a lot more money than a layperson might expect, and all of whom would obviously be cut off at the knees by squeaky-clean first-world aggregator-reader services the second the copyright protections of their works were revoked.

kingsuper20 5y ago

>Copyright doesn't just benefit huge corporations. For instance, without it, independent artists who rely on copying for distribution (authors, musicians, etc.) would find it much more difficult to make money off their work, That doesn't look like it's the point to me. ""[the United States Congress shall have power] To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right , to their respective Writings and Discoveries." " As I read that, copyright is there to 'promote progress', not to maximize gains. No doubt there is a million linear feet of case law that got us where we are. Honestly, I rather like this whole question of copilot. I solidly appreciate the brilliance of github as a honeypot.

caconym_ 5y ago
> To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right , to their respective Writings and Discoveries. What better way to promote said Progress than by making sure said Authors and Inventors can make enough money off their work to keep doing it? As written, it's a roundabout way to get at the instrumentality of capital, but if that's not what they had in mind then I'm not sure what they were getting at. Without copyright, a creator's rights to their own work aren't diminished; it's just that everyone else's are expanded to the same level. (I'd love to know if I'm way off base about this. I'm not a lawyer, and I'm sure it's been discussed to death.) > Honestly, I rather like this whole question of copilot. I solidly appreciate the brilliance of github as a honeypot. I think it's really cool, and I'd probably use it myself. As much as my favorite kinds of programming (e.g. writing experimental text editors) might not benefit from it, in my day job I sure would love to spend less time filling in boilerplate and looking up mundane API details. I don't mean to single Github out in my mention of big corporations benefiting from copyright law. Scraping vast quantities of copyrighted data to build new products is a common business model at this point, and--like other new IP-related paradigms enabled by modern information technology--I think it deserves a fresh look, being mindful of just what it is we're trying to accomplish with copyright law. As you say, it's not always obvious, even in written law.
- stale2002 5y ago
  > What better way to promote said Progress There are a lot of better ways. Having more information being public and free, and usable by tools like this sounds like an excellent way of promoting progress.
  - caconym_ 5y ago
    Well, this is the current status quo. Automated scraping of copyrighted material for (arguably) transformative applications like Copilot is generally allowed under fair use, while non-transformative copying is considered infringement. If you want to strip creators of (default) exclusive rights to their work, that's a different conversation than the one around whether Copilot and similar applications fall under fair use. Both have been touched on in this subthread, but your comment seems to be conflating them in a way that doesn't follow directly from the discussion above it.

underwater 5y ago

The status quo for artists is pretty dismal. Across industries you have a few ultra-successful artists, a small group who can make a decent living and then a long tail of people who can't pay the rent. Gaming things out, I don't think copyright is really helping any of those artists or society as a whole. If it didn't exist, you'd still have breakout artists who make money through endorsements, live shows, and selling original copies of their work.

caconym_ 5y ago
I think it's kind of crazy to handwave away a whole class of creators who do make real money off selling their work (rather than being performers), even if it isn't big money or even enough to live on without supplemental income. And I categorically disagree that copyright isn't helping "any" of them. One counterexample is self-published authors on Amazon and similar services, many of whom do make a lot more money than a layperson might expect, and all of whom would obviously be cut off at the knees by squeaky-clean first-world aggregator-reader services the second the copyright protections of their works were revoked.