8 ms·

Copyright, as it exists in the 21st century, is a scam. It does not protect the artists, the creative works, or the little guy. It is a product of decades' wor

• Xeoncross 4y ago
  Does the US have any state or federal laws that don't benefit the wealthy at least as much as a regular citizen? As far as I'm aware, even laws for the small business play into the favor of larger corporations either directly or via auxiliary laws.
  • Retric 4y ago
    US automotive lemon law for example doesn’t specifically benefit the wealthy or large corporations. What muddles the picture is people do benefit from economies of scale. So, if you make the law actually hostile for large companies both the general public and corporations are worse off.
    • Adraghast 4y ago
      > if you make the law actually hostile for large companies both the general public and corporations are worse off What an overly broad thing to say!
      • Retric 4y ago
        Hostile as in preventing the existence of rather than simply detrimental.
    • oxfeed65261 4y ago
      Lemon laws only apply to cars sold with warranties. Wealthier people are more likely to buy new cars, or used cars with warranties. Poor people are relatively much more likely to buy cheaper used cars without warranties. Rich people also buy more cars over their lives, increasing their chances of coming across a lemon. Therefore, lemon laws are relatively more beneficial for wealthier people.
      • phpthrowaway99 4y ago
        I get what you're saying, but if a construction worker buys a new Ford F150 that is constantly breaking, that is a much bigger problem to him than if a wealthy person buys a Range Rover as a 3rd vehicle for Tahoe runs and that vehicle has some recurring check engine lights. Unless we're calling construction workers buying F150s with 72 month loans wealthy these days.
        • jacobr1 4y ago
          No, I think the OP is suggesting that the more likely scenario is some professional-class "weekend-warrior" type bought the F150s with the 72m loan, which later on was resold to the working-class construction worker on the secondary market.
          • phpthrowaway99 4y ago
            I suppose. Even lemon laws are funny if you follow them to their conclusion, so maybe OP is right. Once a vehicle gets lemon lawed, it gets sent to auction where it is disclosed to dealers, and then it's just sold again to the public as a used car without the ability to be lemon lawed at that point.
  • wpietri 4y ago
    Food safety laws are a good example. By acting as a floor on manufacturer and restaurant hygiene and ingredient quality, they help the poor a fair bit more than the rich.
    • moffkalast 4y ago
      The rich also need to well... eat. It benefits them as much as anybody. For example milk started to be regulated more only after someone in Al Capone's family got poisoned and he bribed the right people to make it a thing. You're kidding yourself if you think any of that was to benefit the poor in the first place lmao, just happens to be a side effect.
      • wpietri 4y ago
        The rich do need to eat, but they can and generally do eat from places with much higher margins and higher-value brands. Those places have less incentive to cut corners and more incentive to keep their customers healthy. The poorer you are, though, the more constrained your choices are and the more risk you may have to take. Food safety laws act as a quality floor (or a risk ceiling if you prefer), so they help poor people more than the rich.
        • Xeoncross 4y ago
          While this is true, the OP's argument could also include other reasons they wanted this such as avoiding costly sickness in their employees. I can assure you that amazon and walmart care at least a little about the health of the minimum wage workers they depend on to move inventory.
          • est31 4y ago
            Amazon is famous for not caring about the health of their workers, compared to competitors in the same industry. They pay above the market and replace the market's healthy workers with workers with health issues. They don't care to optimize their process towards worker health as currently the supply outstrips their demand. https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/12/study-amazon-workers-suffer-serious-injuries-at-twice-rate-of-rivals.html https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/12/study-amazon-workers-suffer-... But I do agree with your general argument, a healthy workforce is better for a country's economy.
  • dpb1 4y ago
    social security, medicare, medicaid, WIC Programs, public schools, public transportation, all come to mind. I mean, no coincidence that they are always on the top of the list to threaten and scheme to cut by the right wing.
  • whimsicalism 4y ago
    Progressive taxation?
    • Brusco_RF 4y ago
      +1 for being the most concise rebuttal. What an asinine statement that poster made
  • rndmize 4y ago
    This seems like an odd question to me. Social security? Medicare? Free education? The entire welfare state? The vast majority of regulatory apparatus, which is generally implemented when wealthy/owner class people cause damage to employees/poor people to a degree that political action is taken (NLRB, FDA, OSHA, EPA, CFPB, etc.)? The great volume of services provided to all citizens, for free - weather forecasting, GPS, state/federal parks, federally funded research; laws like the CRA, VRA or ADA which help those disadvantaged by racism, disability, etc. Look, I'm not going to say regulatory capture doesn't exist, or that the wealthy don't have advantages in getting laws passed that favor their interests, but there's a great deal of stuff that gets done that is specifically for the poor or the average citizen.
    • orthecreedence 4y ago
      > This seems like an odd question to me. Social security? Medicare? Free education? The entire welfare state? These benefit the wealthy. They are used the quell the thirst for wealthy blood that would otherwise be prevalent. They are crumbs thrown to the masses to keep them from revolting during uncertain times. > The vast majority of regulatory apparatus I'd argue most regulatory bodies are captured agenies in the US. The delineation between state and industry has been fading for decades. They either look the other way, or overregulate to choke out any competition that would unseat existing players. Regulation in the US is almost entirely in service to capital. > weather forecasting, GPS Again, these are likely more in service to the economy (capital) than normal citizens. > state/federal parks Fair enough. I'd add libraries to this list as well. These institutions are actually kind of an odd exception to America's complete obsession with privatization, consumerism, and capital. > laws like the CRA, VRA or ADA which help those disadvantaged by racism, disability, etc. Again, fair enough. > federally funded research Yes, often funded by the citizens such that private industry can sell the result without recompense. > Look, I'm not going to say regulatory capture doesn't exist It's the the rule, not the exception.
      • tqi 4y ago
        > These benefit the wealthy. They are used the quell the thirst for wealthy blood that would otherwise be prevalent. By that standard, a law completely redistributed wealth from top to bottom could still be viewed as primarily "benefiting the wealthy"...
• NaturalPhallacy 4y ago
  Copyright law was created by and exclusively for lawyers and the oligarchs who can afford them on retainer. Just look at what Disney has done to us and you'll lose all sympathy for the mouse: https://i.imgur.com/58gB0hq.jpg https://i.imgur.com/58gB0hq.jpg
  • FalconSensei 4y ago
    on the other hand, I don't think Mickey should go public domain.
    • jqgatsby 4y ago
      What is casually asserted can be casually denied. Can you elaborate your reason for thinking this? Is it a special carve-out for Mickey, or would you also include, say, Alice in Wonderland?
      • tremon 4y ago
        Indeed. Why should Mickey be governed by different rules than Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Cinderella, The Sorcerer's Apprentice, Pinocchio or The Ice Queen?
    • noasaservice 4y ago
      In a way, Mickey Mouse is under both copyright and trademark. If someone wanted to do "The New Stories of Mickey Mouse" they should be free to do so. If someone wanted to act as Disney using Micky Mouse, then they should be sued into oblivion for acting as another company.
      • xani_ 4y ago
        That's a fair compromise. Original author owns the rights to a given piece of art in whole and trademark from title, so they can profit off their work and make next title without being mistaken for someone else. Everyone else is free to do with IP, do remixes etc. and if they make something with original IP that is better than originals, so be it ,competition actually working.
• forrestthewoods 4y ago
  What do you think a reasonable form of copyright law would look like?
  • mtgx 4y ago
    Probably around 7-10 years, which is the time limit it originally had. Copyright is meant to be a "public pact" to encourage creation and innovation. But think about that goal for a minute. It doesn't necessarily mean you should be able to create one awesome thing once and then benefit from it for life as a rent-seeking fat cat. Instead, it should give you a reasonable amount of time to benefit from the fruits of it, but afterward, you should be encouraged to create again. So you'd be motivated not just by the carrot of making a lot of money over a 10-year span after launch, but also by the stick that you will no longer get royalties after 10 years, so you need to keep innovating. There is even a study out there that shows that the buyers of most books drastically drops after 10 years. This benefits society at large, since it creates more competition, both from the original author of a work, but also by others who are then allowed to make iterations of the original work. That's why patents are time-limited, too. The idea isn't to give one company the "right" to make money off an invention for eternity, but to allow the whole society to profit from it eventually by allowing others to drastically improve upon that original idea afterward. But why was it ever intended as a "public pact" and not like an "actual right" that authors have? Because let's not forget that no idea is 100% original. In fact, most aren't even 10% original. We all live "on the shoulders of giants" as they say. So most works are just rehashing of old works - so that also means that if enforcement was 100% the inflow of new works would drastically be reduced. So you don't "deserve" to benefit from a "new work" that's actually mostly rehashed old ideas anyway. I always recommend watching the Everything is a Remix series to get a new perspective on this based on the history of copyrighted works: https://www.everythingisaremix.info/watch-the-series https://www.everythingisaremix.info/watch-the-series
    • noasaservice 4y ago
      You're dead-on-arrival. I vouched cause it was a respectful answer. You probably should abandon this account and create a new one that isn't "dead" on post. -------------- > Probably around 7-10 years, which is the time limit it originally had. Samuel Clemens stated that if copyright was shortened to this long or shorter, then he would not issue books. Instead he'd public chapters as to restart the clock for each. And naturally, would arbitrarily lengthen copyright to however long he'd string readers by. As for me, I have no answers. This problem is larger than I think anyone can view.
• zsz 4y ago
  This is precisely why those laboring under the misapprehension that the same mechanism used for this can somehow be used by them to make things more "fair" are, at best, delusional. The results will always be "more fair" only to a certain group; moreover, that group will always exist in some form or other, as precisely such has always been the actual outcome of any fascist/mercantilist/communist system: only the name and presumed principles vary, but the effective outcome is always the same and always toxic to the rest of society.
  • RunSet 4y ago
    "The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread."
• abetusk 4y ago
  What's also bad is that most of the artists that don't benefit from copyright in it's current form are proponents because it's such an emotional issue. Corporations barely need to do any propaganda because so many artists advocate for exploitative system without any prompting.
• joshspankit 4y ago
  I’m going to pile on, but it’s important that it’s part of the copyright discussion: Current copyright is dramatically limiting culture and cultural growth. Any artist now needs to make sure that they are not inadvertently copying anything from their entire lifetime, and that of their parents. It’s rarely good enough that an artist shows that they had never been exposed to a previous work, and so now I see artists taking one of two paths: 1) working in secret, trying desperately to thread the needle between making a living creating and losing it all by being discovered. 2) Forgoing the idea of true creative expression altogether, and limiting themselves to samples that they can pay for up front.
  • rsch 4y ago
    Steamboat Willie is from 1928, almost a hundred years ago. And it is still under copyright. So you can make that “the lifetime of their grandparents” too.
    • mmmpop 4y ago
      I'm 35 and my grandmother was born in the late 40s, my great-grandparents.
      • zdragnar 4y ago
        I'm 36 and my grandfather was born in 1907. YMMV.
  • slim 4y ago
    it's actually shrinking the realm of ideas (culture) by design. since ideas are "property" their value is function of their rareness. economic forces are literally creating artificial scarcity of ideas.
    • BLKNSLVR 4y ago
      On the topic of artificial scarcity, once food becomes quickly and easily synthesisable on consumer premises, does anyone think that will not be incredibly heavily gate-kept by roles similar, or even identical, to copyright as it is now?
• alliao 4y ago
  obligatory link I found it here sometime ago https://career-end.donrosa.de/ https://career-end.donrosa.de/
• samat 4y ago
  I recommend you read Melancholy Elephants, a short novel on copyright by Spider Robinson, I read it years ago and it stuck in my brain http://www.spiderrobinson.com/melancholyelephants.html http://www.spiderrobinson.com/melancholyelephants.html you might like it