8 ms·

I disagree with your disagreement. 10 years is too short, 70 years is too long. There should definitely be a reduction but 10 years isn't it.

dcow 3y ago
How about 14 years?
matheusmoreira 3y ago
Even 10 years is too generous. I'd rather make it 0 instead. I said 10 years because it's what would make copyright tolerable. The right thing as far as I'm concerned is abolishing it straight up. 10 years is a reasonable compromise. Remember, copyright exists at all because we allow it. The raw reality these monopolists face is that public domain is the default state of all information. We're all just pretending that we can't easily copy this stuff. The social contract was: we pretend we don't know how to copy their stuff, they get to make their money and then the works enter the public domain. They're clearly not keeping up their end of the social contract. Why should we? We should all just stop pretending we're dumb enough not to download their stuff at zero cost.
- onepointsixC 3y ago
  Would you be pleased if that applied to all of your work too? That immediately anyone can start taking your work and making money off of it? Copyright at least makes big players pay the original creators for the rights to the works. Netflix going ahead and making money off of subscribers while paying nothing to creators would be a significantly worse situation.
  - matheusmoreira 3y ago
    > Would you be pleased if that applied to all of your work too? That immediately anyone can start taking your work and making money off of it? Sure. From now on I either release my software as AGPLv3 or I don't release it at all. Truth is even if someone violates my license I'm not gonna waste my limited time on this earth litigating against them in court over it. I have better things to do. Stallman would disagree but I think licenses like GPL shouldn't even exist at all: they all depend on copyright to enforce their terms and copyright shouldn't exist in the first place. It's fair as long as nobody is protected: billion dollar corporations can make money off my code but I can make money off of theirs too. Netflix code gets leaked? Oops, looks like it's our code now. Also, Netflix literally exists to solve the problems created by copyright itself. It's ironic how it was ultimately destroyed by copyright holders when they pulled their precious content and started their own shitty streaming services instead. Were it not for copyright, we'd all be using peer to peer technology invented decades ago to consume content much more efficiently. Everything humanity ever created would be available at our fingertips.
    - rhn_mk1 3y ago
      I don't know about Stallman, but, as I interpret it, Bradley Kuhn agrees with you. https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2022/mar/17/copyleft-ethical-source-putin-ukraine/ https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2022/mar/17/copyleft-ethical-...
    - falcolas 3y ago
      > From now on I either release my software as AGPLv3 Why not just make it public domain? That's the default in a world without the right of ownership of code. > Oops, looks like it's our code now. How would you make money of it? It's not like you can sell it. > Were it not for copyright, we'd all be using peer to peer technology invented decades ago to consume content much more efficiently What content? How would it be paid for, since there's nothing that could be sold? Even hobby movies are done to make money.
      - matheusmoreira 3y ago
        > Why not just make it public domain? That's the default in a world without the right of ownership of code. Because if I do that I'm just unconditionally transferring wealth to corporations just as you claimed. No point in doing that while they still get to be "all rights reserved". It's only fair if nobody's protected. > How would you make money of it? It's not like you can sell it. By using it to do improve our own systems. Apparently what the GPL already provides used to be the norm back in the day before copyright protection was applied to software. We should go back to those days. > How would it be paid for, since there's nothing that could be sold? Selling copies after the fact doesn't make sense. Paying for the product before the work is done does. Crowdfunding, patronage. I'm sure they'll figure it out if they have to.
        qwytw 3y ago
        > Crowdfunding, patronage. I'm sure they'll figure it out if they have to So basically every creator would have to have a rich patron/be funded by a government/etc. who would obviously generally want to impose their own agendas? > Crowdfunding So unless an author already has a widespread reputation and a large group of people willing to support him he has no right to benefit from his works? Somebody who is completely unknown but ends up publishing a book which ends up widely popular gets absolutely nothing? I find it inconceivable bizarre that anyone would ever want to live in such a dark and intellectually subdued world for some ideological reason. I mean abolishing copyright would throw us back to the 15-16th century just with internet instead of the printing press...
  - kmeisthax 3y ago
    This already happens today. Copyright does not protect authors, it protects publishers. This is justified as protecting authors in the very narrow sense that authors did get to negotiate with publishers first, but at the most disadvantaged position they will ever be at in their career. They have to pay, but they can pay a pittance and authors will take it because they have no better options. The low- or zero-copyright world would at least end the practice of publishers buying rights to works and then pushing the artists who made them out of it. For example, there are loads of unfinished trilogies whose authors would love to finish them, but the publishers don't want them to, because they consider it a lost cause. Nor do they want their authors self-publishing or going with another outfit, so they won't revert ownership back to the artists, because an unexploited, worthless copyright is still worth more as part of a horde of gold that they sleep on.
    - Matheus28 3y ago
      No copyright means publisher can just take that draft, edit it and publish giving 0 to the author.
      - account42 3y ago
        Any anyone can take their edits and republish. Yes, this means the original author will need a different business model. So what?
      - kmeisthax 3y ago
        NDAs would still apply even in a zero-copyright world. Of course, there's the related question of whether or not publishers would actually agree to nondisclosure in said world, and whether or not authors would care to actually refuse publication agreements that lacked them. The thing about publishers is that none of them are interested in publishing without copyright. Authors have inherent advantages in their craft that would at least leave them with something in a zero-copyright world - you can still crowdfund literature, and that's why you see plenty of self-published authors but not that many self-published filmmakers[0]. But publishers can't - all the things that make them money require not just copyright, but also sublicensing rights on derivative works. In the zero-copyright world they're all fighting to republish things that people already have. So they need copyright ownership with licensing terms that subtly disfavor authors instead. That being said, I'm not an advocate for zero-copyright. That's the nuclear option. But it does need to be pared back to protecting artists from publishers[1], rather than protecting publishers from readers. [0] YouTubers and TikTokers don't count, that's a different medium. [1] And, also, Amazon and friends
  - MitPitt 3y ago
    Netflix subscriptions wouldn't exist in this situation, your example is flawed
    - desmond373 3y ago
      I'm capable of pirating and yet I have a Netflix subscription because the service is better and I like some of the shows they produce. There's still a customer base, it's just not held hostage.
- tivert 3y ago
  > Even 10 years is too generous. I'd rather make it 0 instead. I said 10 years because it's what would make copyright tolerable. The right thing as far as I'm concerned is abolishing it straight up. 10 years is a reasonable compromise. That's not a reasonable compromise. Your proposal of 0 years in a nonstarter, and walking slightly back from that is still a nonstarter. It's pretty clear your prioritizing only your own interests and desires, and not even really thinking about anyone else's. For instance: have you considered that abolishing copyright would abolish the GPL, too? As in, you'd have no right to demand the source to modified GPL code that was distributed. The foundation of the GPL is copyright. Copyright was created for good reason. It is not reasonable to get mad and burn it all down without considering those reasons, and the other effects burning it down will cause. > Remember, copyright exists at all because we allow it. The raw reality these monopolists face is that public domain is the default state of all information. We're all just pretending that we can't easily copy this stuff. We're also all pretending that we can't easily kill other people (btw, we totally can, and you probably regularly operate a 3,000lb death machine). > The social contract was: we pretend we don't know how to copy their stuff, they get to make their money and then the works enter the public domain. They're clearly not keeping up their end of the social contract. Why should we? We should all just stop pretending we're dumb enough not to download their stuff at zero cost. They're advocating for their interests, "we've" advocated for ours, so stuff is entering public domain (Steamboat Willie is almost there, and there are no copyright extensions in the works to keep it there). The correct solution is to dial back the previous excesses in term lengths to something long enough that it wouldn't imperil investment in the production of new works (which can be hundreds of millions of dollars per).
  - matheusmoreira 3y ago
    > That's not a reasonable compromise. Your proposal of 0 years in a nonstarter, and walking slightly back from that is still a nonstarter. On the contrary. Copyright itself is a non-starter. Remember, public domain is the natural state of information. They're the ones who need to convince us to respect whatever social contract they seek to impose. They are doing such a horrible job at it that it can be argued that copyright infringement is civil disobedience and a moral imperative. > It's pretty clear your prioritizing your own interests, and not even really thinking about anyone else's. I am. I don't really care about the "interests" of some perpetual information monopolists at all. The fact they even exist at all is offensive to me. I'd rather they didn't. > For instance, have you considered that abolishing copyright would abolish the GPL? As in, you'd have no right to demand the source to modified GPL code that was distributed. Yeah. See my other post here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35703409 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35703409 > Copyright was created for good reason. It is not reasonable to get mad and burn it all down without considering those reasons, and the other effects burning it down will cause. The reasons don't matter. The actual implementation does. That's why 10 years is an exceptionally generous compromise. It's the only thing that would allow these monopolists to continue existing. If that's rejected, the only reasonable alternative is for society to stop recognizing copyright as legitimate and go back to treating everything as public domain by default. The social contract was: we'd pretend we couldn't copy this stuff, you'd make your money for a while and then your work would enter the public domain. You and I are both gonna be long dead before we see any of those public domain benefits and that's if they don't keep perpetually extending the duration into functional infinity. Clearly they're not keeping up their end of the contract. So why should we keep ours? > We're also all pretending that we can't easily kill other people (btw, we totally can, and you probably regularly operate a 3,000lb death machine). You're seriously comparing the killing of human beings to the copying of bits. I'm not sure I want to continue this debate.
- paulddraper 3y ago
  > Remember, copyright exists at all because we allow it. Yes?
  - matheusmoreira 3y ago
    Yes, and we can make it stop existing if we want to. Even without a billion dollar lobbying campaign. It's called civil disobedience. Convince yourself some law is fundamentally flawed and shouldn't exist, make the choice to disobey and accept the consequences. > Any man who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust and willingly accepts the penalty by staying in jail to arouse the conscience of the community on the injustice of the law is at that moment expressing the very highest respect for the law. - Martin Luther King Jr.
- Matheus28 3y ago
  You’re clearly someone who just wants to consume content without rewarding the authors for it. There’s no point arguing against a position that’s fundamentally flawed.
  - matheusmoreira 3y ago
    Do you wanna know how many thousands of dollars my Steam account is worth? My PSN account? My physical video games and media collection? How much money I've spent on streaming services? For your information, I'm one of the idiots who was dumb enough to buy Windows Vista Ultimate. I have the shiny box and discs to prove it. Not a single person on this website can accuse me of not supporting creators. I do it willingly, even though I don't believe in copyright, because I don't believe in punishing creators for flaws of the system. I do it even though I know deep down I'm getting an inferior product: "pirates" get blu-ray remuxes free while I get shitty ass Netflix video with compression artifacts in 90% black frames.
  - dandellion 3y ago
    That's absurd. I don't pirate, I pay for content because the cost is pretty much negligible to me. I'm happy to reward authors for creating content I enjoy. But I agree with grandparent: copyright is immoral and it should be abolished for the benefit of humanity. We can share culture with the entire world at pretty much no cost at all, having copyright laws that put it out of reach of only the poorest for the exclusive benefit of a few rich is bullshit.
amelius 3y ago
The problem with copyright is that it was defined by politicians and lobbyists. Since this is about our culture, which concerns everyone, perhaps a national poll is in order where people can vote for a period between e.g. the two extremes 10 and 70 years.
clnq 3y ago
Why is 10 years too short and what should the period be?

dcow 3y ago

How about 14 years?

matheusmoreira 3y ago

Even 10 years is too generous. I'd rather make it 0 instead. I said 10 years because it's what would make copyright tolerable. The right thing as far as I'm concerned is abolishing it straight up. 10 years is a reasonable compromise. Remember, copyright exists at all because we allow it. The raw reality these monopolists face is that public domain is the default state of all information. We're all just pretending that we can't easily copy this stuff. The social contract was: we pretend we don't know how to copy their stuff, they get to make their money and then the works enter the public domain. They're clearly not keeping up their end of the social contract. Why should we? We should all just stop pretending we're dumb enough not to download their stuff at zero cost.

onepointsixC 3y ago
Would you be pleased if that applied to all of your work too? That immediately anyone can start taking your work and making money off of it? Copyright at least makes big players pay the original creators for the rights to the works. Netflix going ahead and making money off of subscribers while paying nothing to creators would be a significantly worse situation.
- matheusmoreira 3y ago
  > Would you be pleased if that applied to all of your work too? That immediately anyone can start taking your work and making money off of it? Sure. From now on I either release my software as AGPLv3 or I don't release it at all. Truth is even if someone violates my license I'm not gonna waste my limited time on this earth litigating against them in court over it. I have better things to do. Stallman would disagree but I think licenses like GPL shouldn't even exist at all: they all depend on copyright to enforce their terms and copyright shouldn't exist in the first place. It's fair as long as nobody is protected: billion dollar corporations can make money off my code but I can make money off of theirs too. Netflix code gets leaked? Oops, looks like it's our code now. Also, Netflix literally exists to solve the problems created by copyright itself. It's ironic how it was ultimately destroyed by copyright holders when they pulled their precious content and started their own shitty streaming services instead. Were it not for copyright, we'd all be using peer to peer technology invented decades ago to consume content much more efficiently. Everything humanity ever created would be available at our fingertips.
  - rhn_mk1 3y ago
    I don't know about Stallman, but, as I interpret it, Bradley Kuhn agrees with you. https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2022/mar/17/copyleft-ethical-source-putin-ukraine/ https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2022/mar/17/copyleft-ethical-...
  - falcolas 3y ago
    > From now on I either release my software as AGPLv3 Why not just make it public domain? That's the default in a world without the right of ownership of code. > Oops, looks like it's our code now. How would you make money of it? It's not like you can sell it. > Were it not for copyright, we'd all be using peer to peer technology invented decades ago to consume content much more efficiently What content? How would it be paid for, since there's nothing that could be sold? Even hobby movies are done to make money.
    - matheusmoreira 3y ago
      > Why not just make it public domain? That's the default in a world without the right of ownership of code. Because if I do that I'm just unconditionally transferring wealth to corporations just as you claimed. No point in doing that while they still get to be "all rights reserved". It's only fair if nobody's protected. > How would you make money of it? It's not like you can sell it. By using it to do improve our own systems. Apparently what the GPL already provides used to be the norm back in the day before copyright protection was applied to software. We should go back to those days. > How would it be paid for, since there's nothing that could be sold? Selling copies after the fact doesn't make sense. Paying for the product before the work is done does. Crowdfunding, patronage. I'm sure they'll figure it out if they have to.
      - qwytw 3y ago
        > Crowdfunding, patronage. I'm sure they'll figure it out if they have to So basically every creator would have to have a rich patron/be funded by a government/etc. who would obviously generally want to impose their own agendas? > Crowdfunding So unless an author already has a widespread reputation and a large group of people willing to support him he has no right to benefit from his works? Somebody who is completely unknown but ends up publishing a book which ends up widely popular gets absolutely nothing? I find it inconceivable bizarre that anyone would ever want to live in such a dark and intellectually subdued world for some ideological reason. I mean abolishing copyright would throw us back to the 15-16th century just with internet instead of the printing press...
- kmeisthax 3y ago
  This already happens today. Copyright does not protect authors, it protects publishers. This is justified as protecting authors in the very narrow sense that authors did get to negotiate with publishers first, but at the most disadvantaged position they will ever be at in their career. They have to pay, but they can pay a pittance and authors will take it because they have no better options. The low- or zero-copyright world would at least end the practice of publishers buying rights to works and then pushing the artists who made them out of it. For example, there are loads of unfinished trilogies whose authors would love to finish them, but the publishers don't want them to, because they consider it a lost cause. Nor do they want their authors self-publishing or going with another outfit, so they won't revert ownership back to the artists, because an unexploited, worthless copyright is still worth more as part of a horde of gold that they sleep on.
  - Matheus28 3y ago
    No copyright means publisher can just take that draft, edit it and publish giving 0 to the author.
    - account42 3y ago
      Any anyone can take their edits and republish. Yes, this means the original author will need a different business model. So what?
    - kmeisthax 3y ago
      NDAs would still apply even in a zero-copyright world. Of course, there's the related question of whether or not publishers would actually agree to nondisclosure in said world, and whether or not authors would care to actually refuse publication agreements that lacked them. The thing about publishers is that none of them are interested in publishing without copyright. Authors have inherent advantages in their craft that would at least leave them with something in a zero-copyright world - you can still crowdfund literature, and that's why you see plenty of self-published authors but not that many self-published filmmakers[0]. But publishers can't - all the things that make them money require not just copyright, but also sublicensing rights on derivative works. In the zero-copyright world they're all fighting to republish things that people already have. So they need copyright ownership with licensing terms that subtly disfavor authors instead. That being said, I'm not an advocate for zero-copyright. That's the nuclear option. But it does need to be pared back to protecting artists from publishers[1], rather than protecting publishers from readers. [0] YouTubers and TikTokers don't count, that's a different medium. [1] And, also, Amazon and friends
- MitPitt 3y ago
  Netflix subscriptions wouldn't exist in this situation, your example is flawed
  - desmond373 3y ago
    I'm capable of pirating and yet I have a Netflix subscription because the service is better and I like some of the shows they produce. There's still a customer base, it's just not held hostage.
tivert 3y ago
> Even 10 years is too generous. I'd rather make it 0 instead. I said 10 years because it's what would make copyright tolerable. The right thing as far as I'm concerned is abolishing it straight up. 10 years is a reasonable compromise. That's not a reasonable compromise. Your proposal of 0 years in a nonstarter, and walking slightly back from that is still a nonstarter. It's pretty clear your prioritizing only your own interests and desires, and not even really thinking about anyone else's. For instance: have you considered that abolishing copyright would abolish the GPL, too? As in, you'd have no right to demand the source to modified GPL code that was distributed. The foundation of the GPL is copyright. Copyright was created for good reason. It is not reasonable to get mad and burn it all down without considering those reasons, and the other effects burning it down will cause. > Remember, copyright exists at all because we allow it. The raw reality these monopolists face is that public domain is the default state of all information. We're all just pretending that we can't easily copy this stuff. We're also all pretending that we can't easily kill other people (btw, we totally can, and you probably regularly operate a 3,000lb death machine). > The social contract was: we pretend we don't know how to copy their stuff, they get to make their money and then the works enter the public domain. They're clearly not keeping up their end of the social contract. Why should we? We should all just stop pretending we're dumb enough not to download their stuff at zero cost. They're advocating for their interests, "we've" advocated for ours, so stuff is entering public domain (Steamboat Willie is almost there, and there are no copyright extensions in the works to keep it there). The correct solution is to dial back the previous excesses in term lengths to something long enough that it wouldn't imperil investment in the production of new works (which can be hundreds of millions of dollars per).
- matheusmoreira 3y ago
  > That's not a reasonable compromise. Your proposal of 0 years in a nonstarter, and walking slightly back from that is still a nonstarter. On the contrary. Copyright itself is a non-starter. Remember, public domain is the natural state of information. They're the ones who need to convince us to respect whatever social contract they seek to impose. They are doing such a horrible job at it that it can be argued that copyright infringement is civil disobedience and a moral imperative. > It's pretty clear your prioritizing your own interests, and not even really thinking about anyone else's. I am. I don't really care about the "interests" of some perpetual information monopolists at all. The fact they even exist at all is offensive to me. I'd rather they didn't. > For instance, have you considered that abolishing copyright would abolish the GPL? As in, you'd have no right to demand the source to modified GPL code that was distributed. Yeah. See my other post here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35703409 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35703409 > Copyright was created for good reason. It is not reasonable to get mad and burn it all down without considering those reasons, and the other effects burning it down will cause. The reasons don't matter. The actual implementation does. That's why 10 years is an exceptionally generous compromise. It's the only thing that would allow these monopolists to continue existing. If that's rejected, the only reasonable alternative is for society to stop recognizing copyright as legitimate and go back to treating everything as public domain by default. The social contract was: we'd pretend we couldn't copy this stuff, you'd make your money for a while and then your work would enter the public domain. You and I are both gonna be long dead before we see any of those public domain benefits and that's if they don't keep perpetually extending the duration into functional infinity. Clearly they're not keeping up their end of the contract. So why should we keep ours? > We're also all pretending that we can't easily kill other people (btw, we totally can, and you probably regularly operate a 3,000lb death machine). You're seriously comparing the killing of human beings to the copying of bits. I'm not sure I want to continue this debate.
paulddraper 3y ago
> Remember, copyright exists at all because we allow it. Yes?
- matheusmoreira 3y ago
  Yes, and we can make it stop existing if we want to. Even without a billion dollar lobbying campaign. It's called civil disobedience. Convince yourself some law is fundamentally flawed and shouldn't exist, make the choice to disobey and accept the consequences. > Any man who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust and willingly accepts the penalty by staying in jail to arouse the conscience of the community on the injustice of the law is at that moment expressing the very highest respect for the law. - Martin Luther King Jr.
Matheus28 3y ago
You’re clearly someone who just wants to consume content without rewarding the authors for it. There’s no point arguing against a position that’s fundamentally flawed.
- matheusmoreira 3y ago
  Do you wanna know how many thousands of dollars my Steam account is worth? My PSN account? My physical video games and media collection? How much money I've spent on streaming services? For your information, I'm one of the idiots who was dumb enough to buy Windows Vista Ultimate. I have the shiny box and discs to prove it. Not a single person on this website can accuse me of not supporting creators. I do it willingly, even though I don't believe in copyright, because I don't believe in punishing creators for flaws of the system. I do it even though I know deep down I'm getting an inferior product: "pirates" get blu-ray remuxes free while I get shitty ass Netflix video with compression artifacts in 90% black frames.
- dandellion 3y ago
  That's absurd. I don't pirate, I pay for content because the cost is pretty much negligible to me. I'm happy to reward authors for creating content I enjoy. But I agree with grandparent: copyright is immoral and it should be abolished for the benefit of humanity. We can share culture with the entire world at pretty much no cost at all, having copyright laws that put it out of reach of only the poorest for the exclusive benefit of a few rich is bullshit.

amelius 3y ago

The problem with copyright is that it was defined by politicians and lobbyists. Since this is about our culture, which concerns everyone, perhaps a national poll is in order where people can vote for a period between e.g. the two extremes 10 and 70 years.

clnq 3y ago

Why is 10 years too short and what should the period be?