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Copyright cases around music are a great demonstration of many of the problems caused by our approach to intellectual property: * Artists are generally inspire
by Jochim 3y ago
Copyright cases around music are a great demonstration of many of the problems caused by our approach to intellectual property:
* Artists are generally inspired by other artists and societal context.
* Most artists make very little, some become fabulously wealthy.
* Artists with few resources must be extremely careful not to "infringe" the copyright of a powerful artist.
* Powerful artists have access to legal resources that allow them to, intentionally or unintentionally, take from smaller artists without facing similar repercussions.
There is a complete failure of the system to acknowledge that people produce similar works independently or that human progress has often been driven by conscious or subconscious inspiration.
The current regime would have us paying royalties to the dynasty of the guy that came up with the wheel. I don't think there's any justification that we'd be better off as a society if that were the case.
- showerst 3y agoOn top of that, many cases (including this one) aren't even artists suing other artists. They're estates or companies that bought the rights suing. Oftentimes the creators themselves would be aghast at this!
- heresie-dabord 3y agoWhere there is money, there will be laws and lawsuits. Music is born free and lives by sharing, but the Musical-Industry Complex thrives by other rules.
- onion2k 3y agoOftentimes the creators themselves would be aghast at this! Obviously anyone who has sold the rights to their music gives up that particular claim that though. And (in my opinion) the rights of any musician should die with them, so if they haven't sold the rights to their music while they're alive their music can't fall into the hands of a private equity company.
- Nevermark 3y agoMaking an exception to limit a musicians choice of what to do with their property would just be anti-musician. I.e. musicians should be able to pass on their assets like anyone else. Creating rat’s nests of laws to fix things in ways that are not thoughtfully deep and wide only further separates the rights of the rich, who can afford legal strategists to dodge narrow scope laws, from everyone else. What is needed are judicial judgements that uphold sensible outcomes, and provide relief (and deterrence) against frivolous speculative litigation. The need for an open system of informed human judgement, to settle fuzzy boundaries based on relevant particulars, is one of the primary purposes of a judicial systems. Micromanaging laws introduce massive opportunities for gaming and unintended harm. And create parasitic constituencies that become devoted to maintaining Byzantine situations.
- onion2k 3y agomusicians should be able to pass on their assets like anyone else I didn't suggest otherwise. I'm saying that musicians can't sell their rights and also claim it's bad that people who buy rights sue artists.
- Jochim 3y agoMusicians aren't a special case. The problems that exist everywhere are just more apparent due to their prominence in the public space and how universal music is as a form of expression. We shouldn't make an exception for musicians. We should relax intellectual property law everywhere.
- lr1970 3y ago> ... or that human progress has often been driven by conscious or subconscious inspiration. Obligatory: "Good artists copy, Great artists steal!" (attributed to Picasso and Steve Jobs)
- yoyohello13 3y ago> The current regime would have us paying royalties to the dynasty of the guy that came up with the wheel. Even worse than that. They want us to pay royalties to the person who has a piece of paper saying they own the idea of a wheel.
- z3t4 3y agoCopyright and patents have an age limit - for good reasons. If anyone would have a patent for the wheel, it would have expired by now - letting everyone use the design for free.
- Jochim 3y agoCopyright restrictions are so lengthy that only people born at the tail-end of the author's life will ever be able to build on that work. Take the Lord of the Rings for example: Tolkien has been dead for half a century, the society that recognised and popularised his work is largely dead, having had no opportunity to contribute to, or build on it. The idea that society has raised multiple generations of people who weren't even alive contemporaneously with the author doesn't sit well personally.
- z3t4 3y agoPatents are 20 years, and copyright should probably also be 20 years. Or 10 years after you stopped working on it.
- prox 3y agoI also welcome anyone to DJ on Facebook (and I think Youtube Live as well?), you get shut down, with no option box to tick “but I am a DJ” It sucks and it is another stifling of culture. Literally nobody cares to do anything about it.