6 ms·

> When people propose that copyright be abolished, they are saying, if effect, that anybody who produces a creative work immediately forfeits any right to contr

by wwwtyro 15y ago

> When people propose that copyright be abolished, they are saying, if effect, that anybody who produces a creative work immediately forfeits any right to control it and that any random person can come along and freely enjoy the benefits of that work and also freely reproduce and distribute that work. I could not disagree more. If someone creates a work of art, they only own the physical manifestation of that creation. They can guard that physical manifestation, thereby preventing its release into the public domain until such a time as it may profit them. What they do not own is other people's property, so to force other people to not do with their property what they please simply because someone else had a thought first is unethical. It's an understandable, knee-jerk, brute-force means of providing a business model to artists, but it is still unethical. Find. Another. Way.

route66 15y ago
So, I'm a musician. What "physical manifestation" are you talking about? Compressed air? Because as soon as I make a record I have to "guard that physical manifestation" ... how? with SOPA? preventing CD'd from being sold? And in short you deny artists of ownership of anything else than the physical representation (unethical!) But in the next sentence you make the creation "other people's property". If I think of something you did not, this robs me of rights and automatically gives entitlement to you?
- eropple 15y ago
  Well put. Ditto, say, a game developer. "Find another way" is great and all for games, if you want a bunch of Facebook monstrosities welded into an always-online authentication framework (or equivalent systems). "But you can sell a version with physical stuff that people want" is similarly silly - I'm not a model-maker or a map-maker, I write software and I'm not going to write software if the only way to make a living off of it is to sell tchotchkes. (And, without meaningful copyright, it's easy to duplicate whatever that thing is and sell it as if it were 'official' anyway.) I'm trying very hard to avoid an ad-hominem, but I wonder how many people who espouse this "everything should be free" mindset actually create stuff and hurt themselves with this argument. Even software developers who strictly write software for other people benefit from copyright in a work-for-hire arrangement.
  - greiskul 15y ago
    "if you want a bunch of Facebook monstrosities welded into an always-online authentication framework" Is Steam such a system? If so, give me more of that, Steam is awesome, and proof that people will buy stuff if the original is better than the pirated copy.
    - eropple 15y ago
      Steam is awesome, sure. I buy all my PC games on Steam, and if it's not on Steam I won't even consider it. But I was thinking more along the lines of "freemium" or subscription-based software, neither of which I want anything to do with. With Steam, you're still paying a one-time fee to purchase a license to use the software.
- burgerbrain 15y ago
  Shows. Performances.
  - dhimes 15y ago
    In many cases the writer is not the performer. What for them?
    - burgerbrain 15y ago
      Work for hire can exist without copyright you know.
      - dhimes 15y ago
        What would the business model be in this case?
        burgerbrain 15y ago
        Use your imagination.
        eropple 15y ago
        Spoken like somebody who doesn't have an answer. It's okay to admit that. But given that you generally seem more interested in calling people "insane" and telling people to go fuck themselves[1] than having an honest conversation, I am unsurprised at your behavior. [1] - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3468027 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3468027 - Work-for-hire is a concept that, sure, can work in some cases. It does not solve the problem of the development of significant, large-scale creative works--and making it economically viable to do so. As I've said elsewhere in this comment tree, I find it extremely unlikely that one will fund a Half-Life or a Skyrim through Kickstarter. Can you honestly and with good faith say that you consider it more reasonably feasible for projects to raise multiple millions of dollars on a Kickstarter-esque platform than for private investiture to take the risk of profitability on such a project? You tell us to "use our imagination" to defend your argument for you. I reject this: extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and while I don't expect that you have extraordinary evidence, more than handwaving would be nice. How are large-scale creative works made economically feasible to produce in this utopic world without copyright? To the best of my knowledge, even open-source game projects have never managed this. You can bring up a Wesnoth or something, but the coherence of the game experience is poor at best and for the most part these games simply fail to credibly measure up to the focused, designed experiences of the aforementioned commercial titles. The argument of "settle for Wesnoths" doesn't ring true to me. Were I to assume bad faith, as you so regularly seem to do (really, you're among the more abusive regular posters here, I'm kind of surprised you get away with it), I would charge that you lack respect for creatives and seem content for them to subsist off the inconsistently extant angels of consumers' better natures. But instead I would rather assume good faith and expect you to have some sort of insight into this world that you imply would be superior. So, put up or shut up.
- wwwtyro 15y ago
  > What "physical manifestation" are you talking about? However your creation manifests itself. A live performance or the physical media of a recording, for example. > Because as soon as I make a record I have to "guard that physical manifestation" ... how? The same way you guard your other possessions: with a lock and a door. > you make the creation "other people's property" The physical manifestation. The matter, as it were. > If I think of something you did not this robs me of rights and automatically gives entitlement to you? If you come up with an idea, it is yours to guard. If you communicate this idea, then you cannot ethically use force to prevent others from acting upon it. I do not believe I am robbing you of any right, because I do not believe that information can be property - only the physical manifestation of information (the media) can be property.
  - tjr 15y ago
    What do you think about, for example, Creative Commons attribution licenses? Is it just for creators of informational works to allow the public to redistribute them only if they receive attribution for their work? Or is making any demands whatsoever with respect to redistribution not a right that the creator should have?
- bluesnowmonkey 15y ago
  People have made music for thousands of years. We've only been able to record it for 135. I don't think music would go away if you suddenly had the ability to record it but not to prevent others from copying the recording. As far as I can tell, you can't stop teenagers from forming rock bands. Music will survive. The fundamental point is that I don't think that you have a right to make a living as an artist. If you can find a way to get people to pay you for it, that's great. Just don't take away people's rights in the process. It's the same in software. I'd love to be able to get paid for every little thing I ever wrote, but that's not reality. I only get paid for things that can be packaged into some kind of product, something with a business model where people feel like paying me.
Spoom 15y ago
While I realize that it can't happen any time soon due to the current businesses that rely on copyright protection, there have been alternatives proposed that work without it, like The Digital Art Auction ( http://tdaa.digitalproductions.co.uk/history/essay.htm http://tdaa.digitalproductions.co.uk/history/essay.htm ) and Street Performer Protocol ( http://www.schneier.com/paper-street-performer.html http://www.schneier.com/paper-street-performer.html , blacked out due to SOPA as of writing). Vastly simplified, they describe a system in which an artist describes a work they would create, and the money they would like to raise to release such a work. People bid on how much they would pay to see the work released. This bid is either collected into an escrow account up front or otherwise "pledged" in some binding way (perhaps a credit card auth). Once the threshold of pledges is reached, the money is released to the artist and the art is released to the public. These threshold pledge systems all have the weakness that the work must be paid for up front, after which (since one assumes a lack of copyright) the work is public domain. In some ways this may not actually be a weakness, though; it transforms users into investors, making them say, "I would like something that does / has X and Y, and I would be willing to pay $Z to get it." Of course, this system does not entail any per-copy price... however, nowadays the cost to create a copy of something is approaching zero anyway. Does it really make sense to continue to charge a per-copy fee? Charging a subscription fee, however, would still be possible in many circumstances, if a service was actually being offered. What are your thoughts on such systems?
- eropple 15y ago
  I've read both of the links you provide at various times, and I remain skeptical. It seems like an awesome way to put a hard ceiling on what creative works actually get made, because the likelihood of anyone actually funding a project of magnitude is extremely small. I look at it from a game development point of view, and I have to ask--who's going to pony up the cash for the next Half-Life (not the next Valve game, but the next product on that level) up-front when dealing with nobodies? And there's no reason for somebody to sink their own money into such a project because of the lack of payoff. Today, I can self-bootstrap by making smaller games and building up cash reserves, if I want. Or I can put away some money in my day job, like I am now, to actually build what I want to build and what I think will be well-received and make more value back for me than the money and time I'll need to sink into it to create it. Why would I risk my own money, and that much time, in a system where I'll get nothing back for it? (Subscription services are not a solution; not every game is World of Warcraft, and I'd argue that none should be.) "I'm going to need $100,000 (or, for something where you'd actually have to hire multiple people, $X,000,000) to make a video game." "Yeah, right. Don't let the door hit you on the way out." While I'm willing to be convinced otherwise, every rebuttal to this I've ever seen requires a lot of handwaving and an assumption of active and knowledgeable participation on the part of end consumers. To be honest, I don't expect investor-level behavior out of consumers; I expect a lot of yelling about how something is X when they "already paid for" something very slightly but to them critically different than X, but not much in the way of useful, constructive development-centric criticism. It's not their bag.

by wwwtyro 15y ago

route66 15y ago

So, I'm a musician. What "physical manifestation" are you talking about? Compressed air? Because as soon as I make a record I have to "guard that physical manifestation" ... how? with SOPA? preventing CD'd from being sold? And in short you deny artists of ownership of anything else than the physical representation (unethical!) But in the next sentence you make the creation "other people's property". If I think of something you did not, this robs me of rights and automatically gives entitlement to you?

eropple 15y ago
Well put. Ditto, say, a game developer. "Find another way" is great and all for games, if you want a bunch of Facebook monstrosities welded into an always-online authentication framework (or equivalent systems). "But you can sell a version with physical stuff that people want" is similarly silly - I'm not a model-maker or a map-maker, I write software and I'm not going to write software if the only way to make a living off of it is to sell tchotchkes. (And, without meaningful copyright, it's easy to duplicate whatever that thing is and sell it as if it were 'official' anyway.) I'm trying very hard to avoid an ad-hominem, but I wonder how many people who espouse this "everything should be free" mindset actually create stuff and hurt themselves with this argument. Even software developers who strictly write software for other people benefit from copyright in a work-for-hire arrangement.
- greiskul 15y ago
  "if you want a bunch of Facebook monstrosities welded into an always-online authentication framework" Is Steam such a system? If so, give me more of that, Steam is awesome, and proof that people will buy stuff if the original is better than the pirated copy.
  - eropple 15y ago
    Steam is awesome, sure. I buy all my PC games on Steam, and if it's not on Steam I won't even consider it. But I was thinking more along the lines of "freemium" or subscription-based software, neither of which I want anything to do with. With Steam, you're still paying a one-time fee to purchase a license to use the software.
burgerbrain 15y ago
Shows. Performances.
- dhimes 15y ago
  In many cases the writer is not the performer. What for them?
  - burgerbrain 15y ago
    Work for hire can exist without copyright you know.
    - dhimes 15y ago
      What would the business model be in this case?
      - burgerbrain 15y ago
        Use your imagination.
        eropple 15y ago
        Spoken like somebody who doesn't have an answer. It's okay to admit that. But given that you generally seem more interested in calling people "insane" and telling people to go fuck themselves[1] than having an honest conversation, I am unsurprised at your behavior. [1] - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3468027 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3468027 - Work-for-hire is a concept that, sure, can work in some cases. It does not solve the problem of the development of significant, large-scale creative works--and making it economically viable to do so. As I've said elsewhere in this comment tree, I find it extremely unlikely that one will fund a Half-Life or a Skyrim through Kickstarter. Can you honestly and with good faith say that you consider it more reasonably feasible for projects to raise multiple millions of dollars on a Kickstarter-esque platform than for private investiture to take the risk of profitability on such a project? You tell us to "use our imagination" to defend your argument for you. I reject this: extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and while I don't expect that you have extraordinary evidence, more than handwaving would be nice. How are large-scale creative works made economically feasible to produce in this utopic world without copyright? To the best of my knowledge, even open-source game projects have never managed this. You can bring up a Wesnoth or something, but the coherence of the game experience is poor at best and for the most part these games simply fail to credibly measure up to the focused, designed experiences of the aforementioned commercial titles. The argument of "settle for Wesnoths" doesn't ring true to me. Were I to assume bad faith, as you so regularly seem to do (really, you're among the more abusive regular posters here, I'm kind of surprised you get away with it), I would charge that you lack respect for creatives and seem content for them to subsist off the inconsistently extant angels of consumers' better natures. But instead I would rather assume good faith and expect you to have some sort of insight into this world that you imply would be superior. So, put up or shut up.
wwwtyro 15y ago
> What "physical manifestation" are you talking about? However your creation manifests itself. A live performance or the physical media of a recording, for example. > Because as soon as I make a record I have to "guard that physical manifestation" ... how? The same way you guard your other possessions: with a lock and a door. > you make the creation "other people's property" The physical manifestation. The matter, as it were. > If I think of something you did not this robs me of rights and automatically gives entitlement to you? If you come up with an idea, it is yours to guard. If you communicate this idea, then you cannot ethically use force to prevent others from acting upon it. I do not believe I am robbing you of any right, because I do not believe that information can be property - only the physical manifestation of information (the media) can be property.
- tjr 15y ago
  What do you think about, for example, Creative Commons attribution licenses? Is it just for creators of informational works to allow the public to redistribute them only if they receive attribution for their work? Or is making any demands whatsoever with respect to redistribution not a right that the creator should have?
bluesnowmonkey 15y ago
People have made music for thousands of years. We've only been able to record it for 135. I don't think music would go away if you suddenly had the ability to record it but not to prevent others from copying the recording. As far as I can tell, you can't stop teenagers from forming rock bands. Music will survive. The fundamental point is that I don't think that you have a right to make a living as an artist. If you can find a way to get people to pay you for it, that's great. Just don't take away people's rights in the process. It's the same in software. I'd love to be able to get paid for every little thing I ever wrote, but that's not reality. I only get paid for things that can be packaged into some kind of product, something with a business model where people feel like paying me.

Spoom 15y ago

While I realize that it can't happen any time soon due to the current businesses that rely on copyright protection, there have been alternatives proposed that work without it, like The Digital Art Auction ( http://tdaa.digitalproductions.co.uk/history/essay.htm http://tdaa.digitalproductions.co.uk/history/essay.htm ) and Street Performer Protocol ( http://www.schneier.com/paper-street-performer.html http://www.schneier.com/paper-street-performer.html , blacked out due to SOPA as of writing). Vastly simplified, they describe a system in which an artist describes a work they would create, and the money they would like to raise to release such a work. People bid on how much they would pay to see the work released. This bid is either collected into an escrow account up front or otherwise "pledged" in some binding way (perhaps a credit card auth). Once the threshold of pledges is reached, the money is released to the artist and the art is released to the public. These threshold pledge systems all have the weakness that the work must be paid for up front, after which (since one assumes a lack of copyright) the work is public domain. In some ways this may not actually be a weakness, though; it transforms users into investors, making them say, "I would like something that does / has X and Y, and I would be willing to pay $Z to get it." Of course, this system does not entail any per-copy price... however, nowadays the cost to create a copy of something is approaching zero anyway. Does it really make sense to continue to charge a per-copy fee? Charging a subscription fee, however, would still be possible in many circumstances, if a service was actually being offered. What are your thoughts on such systems?

eropple 15y ago
I've read both of the links you provide at various times, and I remain skeptical. It seems like an awesome way to put a hard ceiling on what creative works actually get made, because the likelihood of anyone actually funding a project of magnitude is extremely small. I look at it from a game development point of view, and I have to ask--who's going to pony up the cash for the next Half-Life (not the next Valve game, but the next product on that level) up-front when dealing with nobodies? And there's no reason for somebody to sink their own money into such a project because of the lack of payoff. Today, I can self-bootstrap by making smaller games and building up cash reserves, if I want. Or I can put away some money in my day job, like I am now, to actually build what I want to build and what I think will be well-received and make more value back for me than the money and time I'll need to sink into it to create it. Why would I risk my own money, and that much time, in a system where I'll get nothing back for it? (Subscription services are not a solution; not every game is World of Warcraft, and I'd argue that none should be.) "I'm going to need $100,000 (or, for something where you'd actually have to hire multiple people, $X,000,000) to make a video game." "Yeah, right. Don't let the door hit you on the way out." While I'm willing to be convinced otherwise, every rebuttal to this I've ever seen requires a lot of handwaving and an assumption of active and knowledgeable participation on the part of end consumers. To be honest, I don't expect investor-level behavior out of consumers; I expect a lot of yelling about how something is X when they "already paid for" something very slightly but to them critically different than X, but not much in the way of useful, constructive development-centric criticism. It's not their bag.