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This already happens today. Copyright does not protect authors, it protects publishers. This is justified as protecting authors in the very narrow sense that a

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 4y ago
No copyright means publisher can just take that draft, edit it and publish giving 0 to the author.
- account42 4y ago
  Any anyone can take their edits and republish. Yes, this means the original author will need a different business model. So what?
- kmeisthax 4y 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

Matheus28 4y ago

No copyright means publisher can just take that draft, edit it and publish giving 0 to the author.

account42 4y ago
Any anyone can take their edits and republish. Yes, this means the original author will need a different business model. So what?
kmeisthax 4y 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