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I don't think you need to invoke the power of evil corporations to explain why this gets so little pushback in the public discourse. Matthew Yglesias did a twe

I don't think you need to invoke the power of evil corporations to explain why this gets so little pushback in the public discourse. Matthew Yglesias did a tweet thread a while back arguing that copyright terms should be shorter and the responses were instructive. People -- regular people -- have a pretty deep intuition that if you create something, then it belongs to you -- forever. The Jeffersonian notion that copyright exists only to incentivize new works is to most folks an odd one. His mentions filled up with authors arguing that their great-grandkids should enjoy the fruits of their labor, sentiments that garnered broad support from basically everyone except copyright law nerds (like myself).

account42 3y ago
But regular people don't own any copyrights worth mentioning. Sure, there are people who have built their livelyhoods on copyright and they will of course try to extend the benefit as much as possible - after all, the benefit is a lot more visible and direct than the costs. These are the authors in your example. But the vast majority of people are not authors. They are not musicians. They are not artists. 99% of people do no create any "IP" worth anything outside of their workplace. So maybe your example is more than anything a reminder that twitter polls are not representative of the population at large.
WeylandYutani 3y ago
Most people receive a salary. They don't own their work. No different from the people who work at Disney studios.
retrac 3y ago
That has not been my experience; I've brought up copyright a fair bit in conversations over the years (much to the chagrin of my friends, acquaintances and coworkers, I'm sure). I've literally never met anyone who thinks the great-grandchildren of an author should be financially compensated for their great-grandparents' work. That very scenario is usually the example I bring up -- the old "If I built and installed a plumbing fixture, should my great-grandkids be able to collect licence fees on its use?" analogy is persuasive. I do agree people generally think that an intellectual work created is rightfully the property of the creator -- but most don't extend that much past death.
- mst 3y ago
  It would be unsurprising to discover that M. Yglesias attracted the attention of a twitter cluster that holds a fairly specific niche view very strongly and lots of that cluster piled in to the thread in question. This is not, after all, a particularly rare event on the platform in general.
- iggldiggl 3y ago
  The plumbing fixture analogy only stretches so far, though, because installing a fixture takes a few hours at most, so paying for the plumber's time in a one-and-done lump sum is an entirely feasible affair for a lot of people. Writing a book on the other hand usually takes weeks, months or even years, so only the richest of individuals could afford to pay an author's living expenses for that period in a similar one-and-done lump sum. Plus people that read books want to likely read new books more frequently than they need their plumbing fixed, again exacerbating that problem. So consequently you need some sort of arrangement that allows for splitting the necessary payment to the author up across multiple people and/or over time. Additionally, artists often speculatively create works without knowing for sure whether the public will take any interest in their work, or not. Copyright certainly has its faults, but it does cater for precisely that scenario by ensuring that you can insist on getting paid afterwards if people enjoy and want access to your work, and you don't need to acquire all the necessary funding up front. If you can't come up with enough money, you can even "just" invest your spare time instead and still get paid back if the work turns out be successful. Plumbers on the other hand I assume rarely have the desire to speculatively fix up other people's plumbing and then hope to get paid afterwards if they did a good job. Rewarding artists after they've already produced the artistic work if they're successful also makes sense in that the quality of artistic output can vary, and so there's a bigger risk of disappointment if you need to pay far in advance, before the work has possibly even been produced. And because the quality of an artistic work is also very much a subjective matter, it'd also be much more difficult getting your money back in that case, whereas plumbing can mostly be judged according to much more objective standards, so getting your money back – through the legal system if required - is again a more tenable affair. Of course the existence of Kickstarter and the like or even just plain old pre-orders show that to some extent people are willing to take that risk of paying in advance, but whether that would be enough if it was the only reasonable source of funding for artistic works? It'd also mean that if you can't convince people to pay you in advance (and good luck with that if you're some unknown newcomer), then good luck getting any more money afterwards, even if the book/… then turns out to be wildly popular afterwards.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
mncharity 3y ago
Fwiw, I've seen the Hollywood-ish copyright-maximalist community comment to itself about Yglesias posts, and so can easily imagine a post drawing comments representative of that community, rather than of "regular people".

account42 3y ago

But regular people don't own any copyrights worth mentioning. Sure, there are people who have built their livelyhoods on copyright and they will of course try to extend the benefit as much as possible - after all, the benefit is a lot more visible and direct than the costs. These are the authors in your example. But the vast majority of people are not authors. They are not musicians. They are not artists. 99% of people do no create any "IP" worth anything outside of their workplace. So maybe your example is more than anything a reminder that twitter polls are not representative of the population at large.

WeylandYutani 3y ago

Most people receive a salary. They don't own their work. No different from the people who work at Disney studios.

retrac 3y ago

That has not been my experience; I've brought up copyright a fair bit in conversations over the years (much to the chagrin of my friends, acquaintances and coworkers, I'm sure). I've literally never met anyone who thinks the great-grandchildren of an author should be financially compensated for their great-grandparents' work. That very scenario is usually the example I bring up -- the old "If I built and installed a plumbing fixture, should my great-grandkids be able to collect licence fees on its use?" analogy is persuasive. I do agree people generally think that an intellectual work created is rightfully the property of the creator -- but most don't extend that much past death.

mst 3y ago
It would be unsurprising to discover that M. Yglesias attracted the attention of a twitter cluster that holds a fairly specific niche view very strongly and lots of that cluster piled in to the thread in question. This is not, after all, a particularly rare event on the platform in general.
iggldiggl 3y ago
The plumbing fixture analogy only stretches so far, though, because installing a fixture takes a few hours at most, so paying for the plumber's time in a one-and-done lump sum is an entirely feasible affair for a lot of people. Writing a book on the other hand usually takes weeks, months or even years, so only the richest of individuals could afford to pay an author's living expenses for that period in a similar one-and-done lump sum. Plus people that read books want to likely read new books more frequently than they need their plumbing fixed, again exacerbating that problem. So consequently you need some sort of arrangement that allows for splitting the necessary payment to the author up across multiple people and/or over time. Additionally, artists often speculatively create works without knowing for sure whether the public will take any interest in their work, or not. Copyright certainly has its faults, but it does cater for precisely that scenario by ensuring that you can insist on getting paid afterwards if people enjoy and want access to your work, and you don't need to acquire all the necessary funding up front. If you can't come up with enough money, you can even "just" invest your spare time instead and still get paid back if the work turns out be successful. Plumbers on the other hand I assume rarely have the desire to speculatively fix up other people's plumbing and then hope to get paid afterwards if they did a good job. Rewarding artists after they've already produced the artistic work if they're successful also makes sense in that the quality of artistic output can vary, and so there's a bigger risk of disappointment if you need to pay far in advance, before the work has possibly even been produced. And because the quality of an artistic work is also very much a subjective matter, it'd also be much more difficult getting your money back in that case, whereas plumbing can mostly be judged according to much more objective standards, so getting your money back – through the legal system if required - is again a more tenable affair. Of course the existence of Kickstarter and the like or even just plain old pre-orders show that to some extent people are willing to take that risk of paying in advance, but whether that would be enough if it was the only reasonable source of funding for artistic works? It'd also mean that if you can't convince people to pay you in advance (and good luck with that if you're some unknown newcomer), then good luck getting any more money afterwards, even if the book/… then turns out to be wildly popular afterwards.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

mncharity 3y ago

Fwiw, I've seen the Hollywood-ish copyright-maximalist community comment to itself about Yglesias posts, and so can easily imagine a post drawing comments representative of that community, rather than of "regular people".