10 ms·

Do we need copyright? (2012)

161 points by ibobev 3y ago

speed_spread 3y ago
Something something law of headlines: No.
charliea0 3y ago
This makes the reasonable observation that copyright, like other kinds of property, is a social technology. It’s very reasonable to ask if the machine could be improved with shorter periods of monopoly or with a smaller bundle of rights. I wouldn’t jump all the way to concluding that destroying copyright wouldn’t have ill effect though. The concept was created to incentivize and monetize creative production. There is a Chesterton’s fence prohibition against tearing up the incentive machine without knowing exactly what would replace it.
fsckboy 3y ago
You get one chance to make a first impression, and you've lost me in the initial paragraphs > animals own a piece of food only as long as their threat of violence keeps other animals at bay... and yet we are trained to hold copyright as a natural right I'd rather chafe under some copyright restrictions on minor parts of my life than be in a life and death struggle over every bite of food, so... so far, you're making the copyright regime look good in comparison to living as a beast without it, and I'm speaking as someone who'd like extensive copyright reform.
- tshaddox 3y ago
  I don’t even understand the dichotomy the author is trying to paint, because territorialism in animals is also a social construction. It’s a way more complex set of behaviors and norms than just seeing an individual with food and deciding if you can safely steal the food on a case-by-case basis.
  - dredmorbius 3y ago
    Territorialism in animals is a behavioural construct. An animal can defend its territory solely via its own volition and actions, rather than through some herd or tribal agreement. A spider's web or ant lion's trap are both example which suggest territoriality without sociality. (There are of course social insects: bees, ants, and termite most well known.) A social construct would be one which operates through common understanding and agreement amongst multiple animals, typically of a single species, and generally amongst a single tribe or herd. I don't think of examples off the top of my head, though I suspect they exist. I'd also probably want to distinguish instinctual behaviours (e.g., bees, ants, termites) from cultural behaviours, learned, taught, and passed down within a specific group. A cleavage between the two concepts would be that instinctual behaviours re-emerge even when individuals are not raised or taught by older generations, whilst cultural behaviours are lost where the social transmission via teaching is broken. (And yes, the thought comes to mind that several phenomena widely labled as "social constructs" amongst humans would likely be re-labled as instinctual based on the distinction I've drawn here.) Merriam-Webster: "an idea that has been created and accepted by the people in a society". <https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/social%20construct https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/social%20construc...> ThoughtCo has a brief introduction to the concept of social construct: <https://www.thoughtco.com/social-constructionism-4586374 https://www.thoughtco.com/social-constructionism-4586374>
- api 3y ago
  You’re right. I think of it this way. The more we dematerialize the economy the more intellectual property will become the only form of property most people can own besides financial assets and their time. Taking that away only gives even more power to the super rich by transforming all human intellectual products into free labor for portals and paywalls to aggregate and sell back to us. They already do that of course but without copyright there would be no way to prevent them from doing it with any work.
  - throwawaymaths 3y ago
    Maybe you should flip your argument. The less we protect "IP", the more we rematerialize the economy, and reward people making innovations in pushing atoms over people pushing electrons. That might be a good thing
    - api 3y ago
      I'm not sure most people can do that in a world with 10 billion humans. A whole lot of pushing atoms will be automated and the rest will require advanced engineering degrees.
- rainsford 3y ago
  If I'm being generous, I think the point the author was trying to make with that introduction is that the concept of property as a social construct is an extension of animals protecting physical objects such as food, different than the concept of owning an intangible work. If he was as smart as he clearly thinks he is, he'd realize that once you introduce the idea of owning things beyond objects you can physically defend 100% of the time (something the vast majority of people support), whether or not it's actually a physical object becomes much less important compared to the fundamental idea of socially protected ownership.
- Rapzid 3y ago
  I'm also not really sure where their training came from that copyright is a natural right haha. Seems like a straw man.
alphanullmeric 3y ago
Unfortunately, many people would answer differently depending on who it would benefit. Artists pirating productivity software and those supporting leaks of proprietary code are often the same people crying theft when their “property” is used to train neural networks.
- aleph_minus_one 3y ago
  These are different groups of people. Just one point of evidence: those people who license their original code under a copyleft license (thus the code might perhaps not be used as data to train neural networks) do accept (some concept of) copyright, since without copyright the copyleft restrictions (having to deliver the source code under an identical/suitable license for derivates of the program) could not be enforced.
  - erik_seaberg 3y ago
    I wouldn’t care as much about copyleft, given no limits on redistribution and reverse engineering (which I hope would bring about better tools).
  - tikhonj 3y ago
    > since without copyright the copyleft restrictions (having to deliver the source code under an identical/suitable license for derivates of the program) We could have regulations around distributing source code that are completely divorced from copyright—it could be seen as a matter of "right to repair" or transparency or just as a right on its own. I expect that people ideologically in favor of free software would prefer that to needing copyleft licenses. The fact that copyleft builds on top of copyright is a nice bit of legal judo, using the existing framework to achieve the opposite of what it's intended for—but it's ultimately just an implementation detail.
  - nl 3y ago
    I license code under copyleft licenses and strongly support it being used to train neural networks. I want my code to be a learning resource, whether it be humans or machines learning from it.
Findeton 3y ago
No we don’t. It’s against property rights.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
23B1 3y ago
Another academic indulging in nirvana fallacy + circular reasoning. "My argument would work if the whole world was different, therefore my argument is correct!" Or as I like to say "If we had some ham, we could have ham and cheese sandwiches – if we had some cheese."
- the-smug-one 3y ago
  Without the context of the article your comment makes sense. With the context of the article your comment makes no sense. What are you even saying?
  - 23B1 3y ago
    Sorry, I wrote "nirvana fantasy" and have corrected it to "nirvana fallacy" which should clarify my point: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirvana_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirvana_fallacy
- nico 3y ago
  A calculus professor I had used to tell a joke of some people trapped in a room and the mathematician would say “let’s assume we have the key, now we can use it to get out”
- hgs3 3y ago
  Nirvana fallacy is only true when the argument is completely implausible, like "when humans sprout wings, we won't need airplanes anymore." However, the article is making the valid point that copyright is just a social construct. It is not something physical, like wings, and under a different culture and/or political system it might be unnecessary.
  - 23B1 3y ago
    I'd be willing to make a long bet that we'll sprout wings before property ownership goes away.
- ouid 3y ago
  Oh no, academics thinking about things. If we lived without copyright the world would be different because of it. Insisting that a world without copyright look exactly like our own is dishonest
ssalka 3y ago
Another great example of innovation (mostly) free from copyright: music. Modern production techniques, especially in hip-hop and electronic music, often involve "sampling" other works, ranging from highly de-contextualized clips (eg vocal manipulation, scratching etc) up to straight ripping entire sections from other songs (eg Eminem's "Sing for the Moment", which samples Aerosmith's "Dream On", both for the instrumental beat and the chorus). That last example may have actually been the result of going through the proper channels to get approval, since it's big artists on either side of it, but generally it's such common practice to sample others' work when making music that suing for copyright claims is extremely rare compared to the prevalence of possibly infringing cases. Sampling to me, and other practices like it, are basically vehicles for creativity and innovation, and it's quite clear that copyright law really only serves to limit this innovation by attempting to restrict usage of creative works. I think Wax Tailor's "Once Upon a Past"[1] sums it up best: > Where a cultural production - at least musically - was full of possibilities, by virtue of being able to freely appropriate from the musical past to make new combinations, and thus new meanings, the story demonstrates that a society "free to borrow and built upon the past" is culturally richer than a controlled one [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYh82fl75oU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYh82fl75oU
- leviathant 3y ago
  > generally it's such common practice to sample others' work when making music that suing for copyright claims is extremely rare compared to the prevalence of possibly infringing cases. While it's true that there's all kinds of music made by sampling other music, when a sample-heavy song starts to gain commercial momentum, copyright comes into harsh focus real fast - sometimes it's lawsuits, but more often there are licensing conversations had in order to avoid those lawsuits. Is it applied evenly? Definitely not, and this is the topic of a thousand longform blogs and multiple documentaries and articles and so on. For example - you may think that because you've never heard about EMI suing Danger Mouse over the Grey Album, that this was "innovation mostly free from copyright ... especially in hip-hop" - but just because nothing went to court doesn't mean there weren't a lot of conversations between lawyers, and agreements made around what exactly happened there.
RecycledEle 3y ago
Article 1 Section 8 of the US Constitution says, in part, "The Congress shall have Power ... To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;" I do not see the high prices for peer reviewed journals promoting the "Progress of Science and useful Arts," not do I see any other copyright helping this Progress. I do not see the ever-increasing terms of copyright being "for limited Times." I do not see any laws "securing ... to Authors and Inventors" anything. I see corporate lawyers getting rich. Given the lack of compliance with the highest law of the land in the USA, I can not describe anyone who follow copyright law as being ethical. I have to find those who promote the profits of corporations and impede the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for never-ending Times to corporate lawyers the exclusive Right to others Writings and Discoveries to be highly unethical. I think the experiment to allow someone to have "exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries" was a good idea in the 1780's, when publishing was largely driven by authors. Today, compulsory licensing makes more sense.
- bentley 3y ago
  > I do not see the ever-increasing terms of copyright being "for limited Times." Neither do I, but the Supreme Court disagreed in Eldred v. Ashcroft. > In a 7-2 opinion delivered by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the Court held that Congress acted within its authority and did not transgress constitutional limitations in placing existing and future copyrights in parity in the CTEA. Disagreeing with the argument that a copyright once set is fixed, the majority found that the CTEA "continues the unbroken congressional practice of treating future and existing copyrights in parity for term extension purposes," and is a permissible exercise of Congress's power under the Copyright Clause. … Justices John Paul Stevens and Stephen G. Breyer dissented, arguing that the CTEA amounted to a grant of perpetual copyright that undermined public interests. https://www.oyez.org/cases/2002/01-618 https://www.oyez.org/cases/2002/01-618
  - EvanAnderson 3y ago
    There’s plenty of precedent for bad decisions from the Supreme Court.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
leviathant 3y ago
>Most of the revenue due to copyright go to wealthy individuals and corporations. Meanwhile, most people who rely on their copyright for a living (writers, musicians, and so on) have low incomes. I think copyright is broken and overextended in America, in desperate need of reform, but without copyright, this balance would tip even further to "wealthy individuals and corporations" - I say this as someone married to a composer, with friends who are writers and artists who, while not wealthy, are able to protect what income they have thanks to copyright, and who have built careers thanks to their ability to claim ownership over works they've created. Let's use that fashion industry example he suggested, apparently having only the most fleeting idea of what he's talking about. If you pay attention to this sort of thing, you see (for one example) Urban Outfitters being called out again and again for using the work of artists unaffiliated with the brand, without compensating the people who originated the work. In the case where the artist can afford legal representation, they're able to pursue this in court and get paid what they are due because of the protections afforded them by copyright law. URBN isn't doing well because out-innovating the competition, they just have money and power and market share, and the people they hire to create new designs are willing to risk pulling something off the internet that they like and putting it on a shirt. It's a long chain of exploitation of the creative class. And if you want to get into the nuances around how high fashion runway crap trickles down into fast fashion knockoffs, that's an entirely different conversation. Of course this guy thinks that because he creates research papers about computer science, he's a "writer" - I'm glad he's sharing his opinion, and I'm sure he's just going to gravitate back into his lane naturally. Given the much-pilloried "AI can paint the rest of the Mona Lisa" tweet, we're going to see a lot of people who've never valued art talking confidently about how art and money really ought to work.
- marcinzm 3y ago
  I may be wrong but as an outsider it seems there's a lot less financially well off independent small fashion designers than there are writers/artists/etc.
  - leviathant 3y ago
    There are fewer well-known paths for someone running a Threadless shop to pursue action against H&M than there are for the publishing trades. The author's remedy for this is: abandon expectation that you can capture value from your work - seek ye instead a wealthy patron. Someone else will monetize your work better than you, so why bother trying? I have a lot of problems with the recording industry as a whole, and the publishing industry as a whole, but - when Eminem samples Dido, or when Prodigy samples The Art of Noise, when the Beach Boys rip off Chuck Berry, there's a whole machine that can go to work to help enable paying the original artist for their work through well established channels. It's precisely because of their use of copyright law and certain mandates around attribution that you're more aware of well off writers and artists than you are of fashion designers. Or typographers! There are plenty of bad uses of copyright law as well, in my opinion. Should the Rolling Stones have sued The Verve out of existence over Bittersweet Symphony? Why were so many African American hip hop acts sued publicly, with sample heavy white acts not receiving the same negative attention? (Vanilla Ice not withstanding) The grandchildren and estates of deceased artists asking outrageous licensing fees for creative works that they merely inherit, due to copyright extension, is poisoning the well - copyright is meant to expire, works go into the public domain, to seed new interpretations and allow wider access. Anyway, I'm on a tear. I think artists who create original works should be given power to capture value produced by their labor.
SeanLuke 3y ago
> The fashion industry is effectively copyright-free. Anyone can come up with a new design for a dress. If the design is successful, it will be copied and it is unpractical to try to enforce copyright. Thus, fashion designers must constantly out-innovate the competition. The fashion industry is highly reliant on trademark. I don't think many would say this is better. It also deals in art whose individual products are much easier to design than writing a novel. > The evidence points in the opposite direction. Germany had weak copyright laws up until the Copyright Act of 1901. Yet, maybe because of these weak laws, it became a literary and scientific power: This is nonsense from Eckhard Höffner. England in the 1830s had a low publication rate because it had a strangling and punative publisher cartel, which Höffner completely ignores in order to make an otherwise ludicrous academic claim. For HN, here's the big one: without copyright there would be no viral licenses.
- asjfka 3y ago
  There is no such thing as viral licenses. Only you can decide the license of your work.
  - Groxx 3y ago
    If your work includes another's work, you are also bound by their licenses. If ^ that imposes restrictions on the combined work, it is a viral license. Because it spreads beyond its original bounds. They absolutely do exist.
    - pessimizer 3y ago
      If your work includes another's work, it's not just your work. If you included proprietary code in your work, it would also impose restrictions on the combined work.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - shagie 3y ago
      The copyright is already "viral" in that one of the things copyright grants is the granting of permission to create derivative works. https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ14.pdf https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ14.pdf > A derivative work is a work based on or derived from one or more already existing works. Common derivative works include translations, musical arrangements, motion picture versions of literary material or plays, art reproductions, abridgments, and condensations of preexisting works. Another common type of derivative work is a “new edition” of a preexisting work in which the editorial revisions, annotations, elaborations, or other modifications represent, as a whole, an original work. The viral licenses of open source grants that to anyone who also follows the same license rather than requiring the equivalent a playwright to contact the right holder of a novel to ask permission to use their story as the basis for a play. And then, as a derivative work... if someone wants to make a movie based on the play, they need to contact the playwright and the author novel and get permission again. The restrictions of the original novel's copyright have extended beyond its original bounds of text on paper to a play and a movie.
norenh 3y ago
I see only issues abandoning copyright (for example it is the protection that makes Open Source Licenses work), but we should definitely discuss the length of it. The current trend of longer and longer periods of copyright protection can be questioned and I wonder if society would not benefit with a severely cut copyright period. Berne convention and other international treaties makes it hard to change below Life + 50 years, but I see no reason all the right incentives for individuals and companies would be there if you cut it to just 20-30 years after publication. The benefits of new derivative works, access and sharing knowledge and other areas would be great for society as a whole. The moral right of claiming ownership to a work should still be protected forever.
marcinzm 3y ago
>State-enforced copyright came about with the Statute of Anne in 1710. It was the result lobby of a group English publishers who sought to regain their monopoly on publishing. Handing out the initial copyright to the authors was a political gesture: the goal has always been to get authors to hand over the copyright to the publisher, effectively giving the publisher a monopoly. This is confusing. It's a political gesture and yet people wanted it enough to value that gesture. So clearly some people wanted to protect authors. Plus a whole social system has been built on top of copyright over the last 300 years and that matters a lot more than whatever a bunch of rich people in the 1700s thought. >In most countries, copyright holds for 70 years after the death of the author. Such a long-term copyright cannot possibly be meant to protect authors. Supporting one's family is a major goal of many people. Ets, etc.
- bentley 3y ago
  > Supporting one's family is a major goal of many people. I’m sympathetic to the idea of providing some means of posthumous support to an author’s widow and children. I’m rather less sympathetic when it manifests as an exclusive monopoly lasting well into the lifetime of the third, fourth, or even fifth generation of descendants.
  - marcinzm 3y ago
    Sure but that's different than saying a creator gets no benefit from it.
- WalterBright 3y ago
  > Supporting one's family is a major goal of many people. I inherited my dad's copyrights. The annual royalties might pay for a movie ticket.
beej71 3y ago
I don't see how you can possibly say that the exclusive right to sell a work doesn't have monetary value, AKA benefit for whoever holds it. I give my stuff away for free online, but I don't want O'Reilly or whomever selling it for money. (I sell print copies for money.) I have no mechanism to stop that other than copyright law. I do think the copyright term should be a maximum of 20 years from the publishing date, though (which would put some earlier versions of my works into the public domain). About the only useful thing copyright does anymore is protect the little guy, contrary to this argument. I am one of those little guys! I can't tell if the author has written any books, but I'd be happy to put them up for sale on Amazon if he does, assuming he has no problem with me pocketing the proceeds.
- contravariant 3y ago
  A point I've always found interesting is how the advent of the printing press was initially a massive boon to writers in the absence of copyright as books didn't keep their value for long so publishers need quite a large supply of new books to make a profit (some details listed in [1], ignore the NFT crap). I suppose this may no longer hold in a world where illegal copies can now spread in a matter of hours, if not minutes, but it's worth thinking about how copyright helps the publisher more than the creator of a work. [1]: https://virginica.substack.com/p/the-printing-press-nfts-and-the-end https://virginica.substack.com/p/the-printing-press-nfts-and...
- rainsford 3y ago
  > I see no justification for copyright. I am effectively a writer: I write lecture notes, research articles and blog posts. I get paid without relying on copyright. From the article. It seems like the author's position is that because his job as a professor means he gets paid independent of the distribution of the things he produces, copyright is irrelevant. Not so much that exclusive right to sell a work doesn't have monetary value, but that this guy makes money without having to take advantage of that value, so obviously nobody needs it. I'm generally a believer in copyright reform and against bashing academics as out-of-touch, but people like this person make holding either position a real challenge sometimes.
  - 3y ago
cultureswitch 3y ago
I think we do need some form of copyright no longer than 10 years past first publication. But the current situation is so insane that it's entirely reasonable to posit that no copyright at all might be better.
efitz 3y ago
As others have pointed out, the natural rights argument is off-putting. It’s also unnecessary. Copyright is explicitly defined in law as a limited time monopoly granted by government. Don’t use the word “property” or “intellectual property” or any property based argument in discussing copyright. Even using the term concedes the point. Copyright is not property, it is a limited government-granted monopoly. Stick to that definition and don’t give any credence to “intellectual property is property “. It isn’t. You can discuss all other aspects of impact of copyright without agreeing that it is property.
- xvedejas 3y ago
  All property in my mind is a "government-granted monopoly", so it's confusing what distinction you're trying to draw.
  - pessimizer 3y ago
    This is absolutely true, but when you talk about government-granted monopolies you can discuss things in their specifics. Confounding the possession of physical objects with any sort of government-issued imposition of rules on other people's behavior usually clouds this issue rather than illuminating it. Ownership of objects usually consists of restrictions on other people taking those objects from you or damaging those objects. When you remove the objects from this idea, it just becomes a restriction on other people.
  - ronsor 3y ago
    "Property" is a natural concept since with physical objects you either have them or you don't. There may be many Teslas, but there is only one of your Tesla. On the other hand, digital content can be copied endlessly, without the original creator losing access to it.
    - grt_thr 3y ago
      [dead]
    - slondr 3y ago
subroutine 3y ago
Yes.
sideeffffect 3y ago
We need Copyright very much, it's the only way to enforce the so called Copyleft: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyleft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyleft
visarga 3y ago
It's probably going to be an unpopular opinion but does copyright make sense anymore when you can get content created for you on demand? assuming it will get good enough.
- Gibbon1 3y ago
  Reminds me of a drunkish conversation about software patents and copyright I had with my patent lawyer friend. He said the legitimate reason for both is to protect the real investment that was made. The classic is an author. Historically might write a couple of dozen major works of which maybe three have any long term value. Or a patent on some physical thing. The real world is NP Hard. His point about software patents and copyright is software isn't hard enough to be afforded that sort of protection. So I agree protection really aught to be based on how much effort + the reward structure. If we're just talking about rent seeking well fuck that.
doublepg23 3y ago
I support violating copyright by any technical means necessary. I’d like to imagine a future where copyright may exist on the books but is not treated with any respect in civil society.
darawk 3y ago
These are all great examples of where it is debatable whether copyright is useful. But I think there are fairly clearly some much more difficult cases to dismiss so easily. The biggest, strongest example is pharmaceuticals. It costs hundreds of millions of dollars to develop a new drug and get it through the approvals process. It costs almost nothing to copy the drug once its developed. Without the protection of copyright, nobody in their right mind would invest the money it takes to develop new pharmaceuticals. There are lots of important debates to be had about how pharmaceutical companies game that system in practice, and whether or not we should tweak the rules to make that harder. However, it seems undeniable to me that pharmaceutical innovation would completely grind to a halt if copyright were abolished.
- xyzzy123 3y ago
  Thats patents not copyright.
  - darawk 3y ago
    Good point. I guess I'll leave my comment as is, but you are 100% correct.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
gwoolhurme 3y ago
Yes. We need copyright... we need to rework it for digital stuff, however if you are an artist, writer, musician, programmer. You should have credit for the work you put out in some way no?
- lannisterstark 3y ago
  I keep being genuinely baffled as someone who writes and has some minor published fictional works about how extreme people can get with this. Why shouldn't I have protection for works I created? What gives someone else the right to just take my story, add tidbits, sell it and make profit?
  - EvanAnderson 3y ago
    You’ve grown up in a world where the idea that someone “owns” a song, a story, etc, is culturally normal. That doesn’t make it a law of nature. It’s just your culture. I find the culture of “ownership” of ideas morally repugnant. That’s not culture I perpetuate or encourage. I’m willing to tolerate some of in the form of limited time monopolies if it benefits humanity.
    - lannisterstark 3y ago
      >I find the culture of “ownership” of ideas morally repugnant I see that we're starting off with a misrepresentation already. Copyright isn't a patent. Copyright isn't solely ownership of 'ideas,' it's ownership of actual work. You cannot 'copyright' an idea. > It’s just your culture. I'm sure when it's the 'culture' of every single country in the world, it's an alright culture. >I’m willing to tolerate > That’s not culture I perpetuate or encourage. See what's great about this is that your extremist ideas are in a minority, and you do not get to make the laws. So what you're willing to 'tolerate' or not is irrelevant. No one is looking to you to 'encourage' or 'perpetuate' the culture. Demonizing artists by going "You don't own your own work, I should be able to own it, I made this!" will only get you so far. --- You shouldn't have free reign to profit off of artistic hard work of someone else without a way for them to benefit from that as well.
trhr 3y ago
Ha ha ha ha ha ha There are many ways to get what you want I use the best, well I use the rest Well I use the enemy I use anarchy 'Cause I, I want to be, anarchy Fuck the rat race man
jamilton 3y ago
I hope eventually the cultural consensus on current copyright law shifts to be more negative, so that it can eventually change. There are international agreements which probably would make it hard for any one country to significantly shorten copyright duration. I think a "reasonable" transitional copyright duration would be something like 70 years from publication. Basically the length of a life, strictly shorter than it is currently, not so short as to make corporations extremely upset, and no potential perverse incentives to kill someone to end their copyright. Shorter would be nicer though.
tiffanyg 3y ago
One point this author makes that I entirely agree with is that "copyright" has often been used to enforce forms of feudalism. And particularly odious forms, IMO. One of the relatively few issues that actually has angered me a fair bit in recent years is the hoarding of content by companies that basically act as "landlords" and often do as little as possible beyond that. In particular, I've had experiences with this as a researcher - doing the work and, these days, really doing all of the writing, editing, graphics, layout, etc. (i.e., "publishers" often don't do even the tiniest bit of traditional "publishing work" if at all possible) only to have the content then locked behind a paywall with websites demanding outrageous fees for access. I've also had experiences with this in trying to support musicians whose work I love. It's virtually impossible to buy music through any of the larger companies and have any reasonable % go to the artists! I've tried multiple times to find services with reasonably extensive catalogues where, oh, I don't know, say even 30% of the money I spend would go to the people who MADE the music, and I've failed each time I've looked! So, instead, I mostly acquire music in other ways, and try to give money directly to the people who made it (and professionals involved in its actual production etc.) in other ways. Now, I know if there's any forum in which I will be corrected if wrong, it's this one. And, I'd be grateful if anyone can point me to better options regarding music, and video (as well), etc. I've been heartened by some of the firms publishing books using better models - providing unencumbered PDFs and the like. Also, significant efforts in academic publishing to change models, like "eLife", the various PLoS journals, etc. But, like many industries with questionable / potentially fading justifications for their models / continued existences in current form, many "traditional publishers" of various kinds have only become more of a PITA in their activities as time continues to pass.
shmerl 3y ago
Even if we need it, its term should be reduced from current crazy length to something sensible.
WalterBright 3y ago
No, we don't. My dad slaved away for years writing his books. He knew they'd never make money, he did it for the academic reputation. Going over his papers after he passed, he made a few hundred dollars off of them. I expect that meant a couple pennies an hour for his labor. For another example, the current music industry is pretty much post-copyright. Musicians don't make money from streaming or CDs, they make it from live performances, performing at private events, endorsements, etc. As for me, I'm the CEO of the D Language Foundation, and we give away all our work for free under the most permissible license we could find - the Boost license.
- kelnos 3y ago
  > Musicians don't make money from streaming or CDs The main reason that's the case is due to record labels forcing musicians into bad deals, because they are often the gatekeepers to popularity. Some of the streaming platforms are better about this now, but the economics of streaming have been set by the record labels and the streaming companies, so even if it's a bad deal, independent artists just have to deal with it. This doesn't have to be the case, it's just where we've unfortunately ended up. > they make it from live performances, performing at private events, endorsements, etc. Sometimes musicians write songs that they don't perform themselves. They license the performance rights to others. Copyright enables that. These things are aided by copyright, though, even if the songwriter and performer is the same person. If a musician writes a song, and doesn't have copyright to protect it, other musicians could perform it as well. Maybe people start liking another performer's rendition more, and the original songwriter doesn't get to make money at live performances anymore, and gets no royalties from other performances. You could argue that's just tough luck, I suppose, but I don't think that's particularly fair. > My dad slaved away for years writing his books. He knew they'd never make money, he did it for the academic reputation. That's just a reflection of the idea that the value in a copyrighted work isn't necessarily monetary. Presumably your dad used the reputation he gained from writing those books for some purpose that was valuable to him. Without copyright, someone could have taken his work and used it for their own gains. After a while, the original provenance of his work may have gotten muddied enough that he couldn't use that work to enhance his own reputation anymore. > we give away all our work for free under the most permissible license we could find - the Boost license. That's great, but not everyone wants to do that. Who are you to say that no one should be able to retain GPL-like control over their software if they want? Who are you to say that someone shouldn't be allowed to release something while prohibiting commercial use? And hell, the Boost license is certainly not even the most permissible license available: it still requires that the copyright/license notice be included with any distributions or derived work. Copyright enables you to make that requirement. If you didn't want that requirement, then you could have released into the public domain (or licensed similarly to public domain, for jurisdictions that don't have that concept). You didn't do that, and your license relies on copyright in order to function. I will be the first person to agree that we need heavy copyright reform. DMCA should be gutted if not completely repealed. Copyright term should be reduced (the only thing from TFA I agree with) to something on the order of 20 years, or perhaps something where you have a shorter term with the option to renew for another short term if the work ends up being important to you. There should be no criminal penalties for copyright infringement; all of it should be dealt with in civil court, and monetary penalties should be based on what the infringer gained, not some made-up number that the rightsholder "lost". Unfortunately these reforms are unlikely.
BulgarianIdiot 3y ago
We needed it. But things changed now.
Eliah_Lakhin 3y ago
The truth is that the majority of software engineers have no idea how to write Software Licenses. And this is the last thing a programmer want to think about when starting a new programming project. So they pick up just some random, but widely used OSS license from Internet, as other people around do. This creates a self-supporting trend where picking something different to a widely used OSS license will look inappropriate. It is much easier to accept an idea that all you need to do is to use a "ready to use" license from Internet, rather than the idea that you should hire a lawyer to write you one, or worse to research the pack of corresponding laws and law practices by yourself. Of course the arguments of the opponents of Copyright and the proponents of the free-software expressed in plain English even reinforce this trend. My opinion is that we just can't have a fair discuss around this topic. To have such discussion we need more people who fairly tried to go both ways, but the current free-artist programmers community is too much shifted towards using of free licenses that basically bypass the majority of the benefits and the trade-offs the Copyright laws can offer.
BasedAnon 3y ago
We don't, and even if we did, it has proven to be unenforcable. What's color is your ratio?
LinAGKar 3y ago
>Most people learn about copyright in schools. Yes, we first learn about it when getting photocopies of books with copyright pages
amadeuspagel 3y ago
> First myth: Copyright is meant primarily to protect authors. > State-enforced copyright came about with the Statute of Anne in 1710. It was the result lobby of a group English publishers who sought to regain their monopoly on publishing. Handing out the initial copyright to the authors was a political gesture: the goal has always been to get authors to hand over the copyright to the publisher, effectively giving the publisher a monopoly. > In most countries, copyright holds for 70 years after the death of the author. Such a long-term copyright cannot possibly be meant to protect authors. Please ... I'm quite critical of copyright, particularly the extended terms, but these are absurd arguments, and any criticism of copyright that doesn't have the courage to question whether authors (and their descendants) should get a monopoly on their work for 70 years after their death is not worth considering. Historically, who lobbied for copyright and why is irrelevant. Authors and publishers obviously have the same interests here. If anyone questions copyright on twitter, even just the extended terms, they always get mobbed by a bunch of authors. As for the fact that copyright holds for 70 years after the death of the author, that is obviously also in the interest of the author and his descendents, because it makes the copyright more valuable. Even if the author doesn't care about his descendants, he can sell the copyright before his death for more money. We should ask ourselves how long copyright terms are necessary. We should make this judgement considering not only the interests of authors, but also those of readers, of society, of an intellectual discourse that everyone can participate in, not denying that the interests of authors might not perfectly overlap with those of society.

161 points by ibobev 3y ago

Something something law of headlines: No.

This makes the reasonable observation that copyright, like other kinds of property, is a social technology. It’s very reasonable to ask if the machine could be improved with shorter periods of monopoly or with a smaller bundle of rights. I wouldn’t jump all the way to concluding that destroying copyright wouldn’t have ill effect though. The concept was created to incentivize and monetize creative production. There is a Chesterton’s fence prohibition against tearing up the incentive machine without knowing exactly what would replace it.

fsckboy 3y ago

You get one chance to make a first impression, and you've lost me in the initial paragraphs > animals own a piece of food only as long as their threat of violence keeps other animals at bay... and yet we are trained to hold copyright as a natural right I'd rather chafe under some copyright restrictions on minor parts of my life than be in a life and death struggle over every bite of food, so... so far, you're making the copyright regime look good in comparison to living as a beast without it, and I'm speaking as someone who'd like extensive copyright reform.

tshaddox 3y ago
I don’t even understand the dichotomy the author is trying to paint, because territorialism in animals is also a social construction. It’s a way more complex set of behaviors and norms than just seeing an individual with food and deciding if you can safely steal the food on a case-by-case basis.
- dredmorbius 3y ago
  Territorialism in animals is a behavioural construct. An animal can defend its territory solely via its own volition and actions, rather than through some herd or tribal agreement. A spider's web or ant lion's trap are both example which suggest territoriality without sociality. (There are of course social insects: bees, ants, and termite most well known.) A social construct would be one which operates through common understanding and agreement amongst multiple animals, typically of a single species, and generally amongst a single tribe or herd. I don't think of examples off the top of my head, though I suspect they exist. I'd also probably want to distinguish instinctual behaviours (e.g., bees, ants, termites) from cultural behaviours, learned, taught, and passed down within a specific group. A cleavage between the two concepts would be that instinctual behaviours re-emerge even when individuals are not raised or taught by older generations, whilst cultural behaviours are lost where the social transmission via teaching is broken. (And yes, the thought comes to mind that several phenomena widely labled as "social constructs" amongst humans would likely be re-labled as instinctual based on the distinction I've drawn here.) Merriam-Webster: "an idea that has been created and accepted by the people in a society". <https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/social%20construct https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/social%20construc...> ThoughtCo has a brief introduction to the concept of social construct: <https://www.thoughtco.com/social-constructionism-4586374 https://www.thoughtco.com/social-constructionism-4586374>
api 3y ago
You’re right. I think of it this way. The more we dematerialize the economy the more intellectual property will become the only form of property most people can own besides financial assets and their time. Taking that away only gives even more power to the super rich by transforming all human intellectual products into free labor for portals and paywalls to aggregate and sell back to us. They already do that of course but without copyright there would be no way to prevent them from doing it with any work.
- throwawaymaths 3y ago
  Maybe you should flip your argument. The less we protect "IP", the more we rematerialize the economy, and reward people making innovations in pushing atoms over people pushing electrons. That might be a good thing
  - api 3y ago
    I'm not sure most people can do that in a world with 10 billion humans. A whole lot of pushing atoms will be automated and the rest will require advanced engineering degrees.
rainsford 3y ago
If I'm being generous, I think the point the author was trying to make with that introduction is that the concept of property as a social construct is an extension of animals protecting physical objects such as food, different than the concept of owning an intangible work. If he was as smart as he clearly thinks he is, he'd realize that once you introduce the idea of owning things beyond objects you can physically defend 100% of the time (something the vast majority of people support), whether or not it's actually a physical object becomes much less important compared to the fundamental idea of socially protected ownership.
Rapzid 3y ago
I'm also not really sure where their training came from that copyright is a natural right haha. Seems like a straw man.

alphanullmeric 3y ago

Unfortunately, many people would answer differently depending on who it would benefit. Artists pirating productivity software and those supporting leaks of proprietary code are often the same people crying theft when their “property” is used to train neural networks.

aleph_minus_one 3y ago
These are different groups of people. Just one point of evidence: those people who license their original code under a copyleft license (thus the code might perhaps not be used as data to train neural networks) do accept (some concept of) copyright, since without copyright the copyleft restrictions (having to deliver the source code under an identical/suitable license for derivates of the program) could not be enforced.
- erik_seaberg 3y ago
  I wouldn’t care as much about copyleft, given no limits on redistribution and reverse engineering (which I hope would bring about better tools).
- tikhonj 3y ago
  > since without copyright the copyleft restrictions (having to deliver the source code under an identical/suitable license for derivates of the program) We could have regulations around distributing source code that are completely divorced from copyright—it could be seen as a matter of "right to repair" or transparency or just as a right on its own. I expect that people ideologically in favor of free software would prefer that to needing copyleft licenses. The fact that copyleft builds on top of copyright is a nice bit of legal judo, using the existing framework to achieve the opposite of what it's intended for—but it's ultimately just an implementation detail.
- nl 3y ago
  I license code under copyleft licenses and strongly support it being used to train neural networks. I want my code to be a learning resource, whether it be humans or machines learning from it.

Findeton 3y ago

No we don’t. It’s against property rights.

deleted 3y ago
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23B1 3y ago

Another academic indulging in nirvana fallacy + circular reasoning. "My argument would work if the whole world was different, therefore my argument is correct!" Or as I like to say "If we had some ham, we could have ham and cheese sandwiches – if we had some cheese."

the-smug-one 3y ago
Without the context of the article your comment makes sense. With the context of the article your comment makes no sense. What are you even saying?
- 23B1 3y ago
  Sorry, I wrote "nirvana fantasy" and have corrected it to "nirvana fallacy" which should clarify my point: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirvana_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirvana_fallacy
nico 3y ago
A calculus professor I had used to tell a joke of some people trapped in a room and the mathematician would say “let’s assume we have the key, now we can use it to get out”
hgs3 3y ago
Nirvana fallacy is only true when the argument is completely implausible, like "when humans sprout wings, we won't need airplanes anymore." However, the article is making the valid point that copyright is just a social construct. It is not something physical, like wings, and under a different culture and/or political system it might be unnecessary.
- 23B1 3y ago
  I'd be willing to make a long bet that we'll sprout wings before property ownership goes away.
ouid 3y ago
Oh no, academics thinking about things. If we lived without copyright the world would be different because of it. Insisting that a world without copyright look exactly like our own is dishonest

ssalka 3y ago

Another great example of innovation (mostly) free from copyright: music. Modern production techniques, especially in hip-hop and electronic music, often involve "sampling" other works, ranging from highly de-contextualized clips (eg vocal manipulation, scratching etc) up to straight ripping entire sections from other songs (eg Eminem's "Sing for the Moment", which samples Aerosmith's "Dream On", both for the instrumental beat and the chorus). That last example may have actually been the result of going through the proper channels to get approval, since it's big artists on either side of it, but generally it's such common practice to sample others' work when making music that suing for copyright claims is extremely rare compared to the prevalence of possibly infringing cases. Sampling to me, and other practices like it, are basically vehicles for creativity and innovation, and it's quite clear that copyright law really only serves to limit this innovation by attempting to restrict usage of creative works. I think Wax Tailor's "Once Upon a Past"[1] sums it up best: > Where a cultural production - at least musically - was full of possibilities, by virtue of being able to freely appropriate from the musical past to make new combinations, and thus new meanings, the story demonstrates that a society "free to borrow and built upon the past" is culturally richer than a controlled one [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYh82fl75oU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYh82fl75oU

leviathant 3y ago
> generally it's such common practice to sample others' work when making music that suing for copyright claims is extremely rare compared to the prevalence of possibly infringing cases. While it's true that there's all kinds of music made by sampling other music, when a sample-heavy song starts to gain commercial momentum, copyright comes into harsh focus real fast - sometimes it's lawsuits, but more often there are licensing conversations had in order to avoid those lawsuits. Is it applied evenly? Definitely not, and this is the topic of a thousand longform blogs and multiple documentaries and articles and so on. For example - you may think that because you've never heard about EMI suing Danger Mouse over the Grey Album, that this was "innovation mostly free from copyright ... especially in hip-hop" - but just because nothing went to court doesn't mean there weren't a lot of conversations between lawyers, and agreements made around what exactly happened there.

RecycledEle 3y ago

Article 1 Section 8 of the US Constitution says, in part, "The Congress shall have Power ... To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;" I do not see the high prices for peer reviewed journals promoting the "Progress of Science and useful Arts," not do I see any other copyright helping this Progress. I do not see the ever-increasing terms of copyright being "for limited Times." I do not see any laws "securing ... to Authors and Inventors" anything. I see corporate lawyers getting rich. Given the lack of compliance with the highest law of the land in the USA, I can not describe anyone who follow copyright law as being ethical. I have to find those who promote the profits of corporations and impede the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for never-ending Times to corporate lawyers the exclusive Right to others Writings and Discoveries to be highly unethical. I think the experiment to allow someone to have "exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries" was a good idea in the 1780's, when publishing was largely driven by authors. Today, compulsory licensing makes more sense.

bentley 3y ago
> I do not see the ever-increasing terms of copyright being "for limited Times." Neither do I, but the Supreme Court disagreed in Eldred v. Ashcroft. > In a 7-2 opinion delivered by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the Court held that Congress acted within its authority and did not transgress constitutional limitations in placing existing and future copyrights in parity in the CTEA. Disagreeing with the argument that a copyright once set is fixed, the majority found that the CTEA "continues the unbroken congressional practice of treating future and existing copyrights in parity for term extension purposes," and is a permissible exercise of Congress's power under the Copyright Clause. … Justices John Paul Stevens and Stephen G. Breyer dissented, arguing that the CTEA amounted to a grant of perpetual copyright that undermined public interests. https://www.oyez.org/cases/2002/01-618 https://www.oyez.org/cases/2002/01-618
- EvanAnderson 3y ago
  There’s plenty of precedent for bad decisions from the Supreme Court.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

leviathant 3y ago

>Most of the revenue due to copyright go to wealthy individuals and corporations. Meanwhile, most people who rely on their copyright for a living (writers, musicians, and so on) have low incomes. I think copyright is broken and overextended in America, in desperate need of reform, but without copyright, this balance would tip even further to "wealthy individuals and corporations" - I say this as someone married to a composer, with friends who are writers and artists who, while not wealthy, are able to protect what income they have thanks to copyright, and who have built careers thanks to their ability to claim ownership over works they've created. Let's use that fashion industry example he suggested, apparently having only the most fleeting idea of what he's talking about. If you pay attention to this sort of thing, you see (for one example) Urban Outfitters being called out again and again for using the work of artists unaffiliated with the brand, without compensating the people who originated the work. In the case where the artist can afford legal representation, they're able to pursue this in court and get paid what they are due because of the protections afforded them by copyright law. URBN isn't doing well because out-innovating the competition, they just have money and power and market share, and the people they hire to create new designs are willing to risk pulling something off the internet that they like and putting it on a shirt. It's a long chain of exploitation of the creative class. And if you want to get into the nuances around how high fashion runway crap trickles down into fast fashion knockoffs, that's an entirely different conversation. Of course this guy thinks that because he creates research papers about computer science, he's a "writer" - I'm glad he's sharing his opinion, and I'm sure he's just going to gravitate back into his lane naturally. Given the much-pilloried "AI can paint the rest of the Mona Lisa" tweet, we're going to see a lot of people who've never valued art talking confidently about how art and money really ought to work.

marcinzm 3y ago
I may be wrong but as an outsider it seems there's a lot less financially well off independent small fashion designers than there are writers/artists/etc.
- leviathant 3y ago
  There are fewer well-known paths for someone running a Threadless shop to pursue action against H&M than there are for the publishing trades. The author's remedy for this is: abandon expectation that you can capture value from your work - seek ye instead a wealthy patron. Someone else will monetize your work better than you, so why bother trying? I have a lot of problems with the recording industry as a whole, and the publishing industry as a whole, but - when Eminem samples Dido, or when Prodigy samples The Art of Noise, when the Beach Boys rip off Chuck Berry, there's a whole machine that can go to work to help enable paying the original artist for their work through well established channels. It's precisely because of their use of copyright law and certain mandates around attribution that you're more aware of well off writers and artists than you are of fashion designers. Or typographers! There are plenty of bad uses of copyright law as well, in my opinion. Should the Rolling Stones have sued The Verve out of existence over Bittersweet Symphony? Why were so many African American hip hop acts sued publicly, with sample heavy white acts not receiving the same negative attention? (Vanilla Ice not withstanding) The grandchildren and estates of deceased artists asking outrageous licensing fees for creative works that they merely inherit, due to copyright extension, is poisoning the well - copyright is meant to expire, works go into the public domain, to seed new interpretations and allow wider access. Anyway, I'm on a tear. I think artists who create original works should be given power to capture value produced by their labor.

SeanLuke 3y ago

> The fashion industry is effectively copyright-free. Anyone can come up with a new design for a dress. If the design is successful, it will be copied and it is unpractical to try to enforce copyright. Thus, fashion designers must constantly out-innovate the competition. The fashion industry is highly reliant on trademark. I don't think many would say this is better. It also deals in art whose individual products are much easier to design than writing a novel. > The evidence points in the opposite direction. Germany had weak copyright laws up until the Copyright Act of 1901. Yet, maybe because of these weak laws, it became a literary and scientific power: This is nonsense from Eckhard Höffner. England in the 1830s had a low publication rate because it had a strangling and punative publisher cartel, which Höffner completely ignores in order to make an otherwise ludicrous academic claim. For HN, here's the big one: without copyright there would be no viral licenses.

asjfka 3y ago
There is no such thing as viral licenses. Only you can decide the license of your work.
- Groxx 3y ago
  If your work includes another's work, you are also bound by their licenses. If ^ that imposes restrictions on the combined work, it is a viral license. Because it spreads beyond its original bounds. They absolutely do exist.
  - pessimizer 3y ago
    If your work includes another's work, it's not just your work. If you included proprietary code in your work, it would also impose restrictions on the combined work.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - shagie 3y ago
    The copyright is already "viral" in that one of the things copyright grants is the granting of permission to create derivative works. https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ14.pdf https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ14.pdf > A derivative work is a work based on or derived from one or more already existing works. Common derivative works include translations, musical arrangements, motion picture versions of literary material or plays, art reproductions, abridgments, and condensations of preexisting works. Another common type of derivative work is a “new edition” of a preexisting work in which the editorial revisions, annotations, elaborations, or other modifications represent, as a whole, an original work. The viral licenses of open source grants that to anyone who also follows the same license rather than requiring the equivalent a playwright to contact the right holder of a novel to ask permission to use their story as the basis for a play. And then, as a derivative work... if someone wants to make a movie based on the play, they need to contact the playwright and the author novel and get permission again. The restrictions of the original novel's copyright have extended beyond its original bounds of text on paper to a play and a movie.

norenh 3y ago

I see only issues abandoning copyright (for example it is the protection that makes Open Source Licenses work), but we should definitely discuss the length of it. The current trend of longer and longer periods of copyright protection can be questioned and I wonder if society would not benefit with a severely cut copyright period. Berne convention and other international treaties makes it hard to change below Life + 50 years, but I see no reason all the right incentives for individuals and companies would be there if you cut it to just 20-30 years after publication. The benefits of new derivative works, access and sharing knowledge and other areas would be great for society as a whole. The moral right of claiming ownership to a work should still be protected forever.

marcinzm 3y ago

>State-enforced copyright came about with the Statute of Anne in 1710. It was the result lobby of a group English publishers who sought to regain their monopoly on publishing. Handing out the initial copyright to the authors was a political gesture: the goal has always been to get authors to hand over the copyright to the publisher, effectively giving the publisher a monopoly. This is confusing. It's a political gesture and yet people wanted it enough to value that gesture. So clearly some people wanted to protect authors. Plus a whole social system has been built on top of copyright over the last 300 years and that matters a lot more than whatever a bunch of rich people in the 1700s thought. >In most countries, copyright holds for 70 years after the death of the author. Such a long-term copyright cannot possibly be meant to protect authors. Supporting one's family is a major goal of many people. Ets, etc.

bentley 3y ago
> Supporting one's family is a major goal of many people. I’m sympathetic to the idea of providing some means of posthumous support to an author’s widow and children. I’m rather less sympathetic when it manifests as an exclusive monopoly lasting well into the lifetime of the third, fourth, or even fifth generation of descendants.
- marcinzm 3y ago
  Sure but that's different than saying a creator gets no benefit from it.
WalterBright 3y ago
> Supporting one's family is a major goal of many people. I inherited my dad's copyrights. The annual royalties might pay for a movie ticket.

beej71 3y ago

I don't see how you can possibly say that the exclusive right to sell a work doesn't have monetary value, AKA benefit for whoever holds it. I give my stuff away for free online, but I don't want O'Reilly or whomever selling it for money. (I sell print copies for money.) I have no mechanism to stop that other than copyright law. I do think the copyright term should be a maximum of 20 years from the publishing date, though (which would put some earlier versions of my works into the public domain). About the only useful thing copyright does anymore is protect the little guy, contrary to this argument. I am one of those little guys! I can't tell if the author has written any books, but I'd be happy to put them up for sale on Amazon if he does, assuming he has no problem with me pocketing the proceeds.

contravariant 3y ago
A point I've always found interesting is how the advent of the printing press was initially a massive boon to writers in the absence of copyright as books didn't keep their value for long so publishers need quite a large supply of new books to make a profit (some details listed in [1], ignore the NFT crap). I suppose this may no longer hold in a world where illegal copies can now spread in a matter of hours, if not minutes, but it's worth thinking about how copyright helps the publisher more than the creator of a work. [1]: https://virginica.substack.com/p/the-printing-press-nfts-and-the-end https://virginica.substack.com/p/the-printing-press-nfts-and...
rainsford 3y ago
> I see no justification for copyright. I am effectively a writer: I write lecture notes, research articles and blog posts. I get paid without relying on copyright. From the article. It seems like the author's position is that because his job as a professor means he gets paid independent of the distribution of the things he produces, copyright is irrelevant. Not so much that exclusive right to sell a work doesn't have monetary value, but that this guy makes money without having to take advantage of that value, so obviously nobody needs it. I'm generally a believer in copyright reform and against bashing academics as out-of-touch, but people like this person make holding either position a real challenge sometimes.
- 3y ago

cultureswitch 3y ago

I think we do need some form of copyright no longer than 10 years past first publication. But the current situation is so insane that it's entirely reasonable to posit that no copyright at all might be better.

efitz 3y ago

As others have pointed out, the natural rights argument is off-putting. It’s also unnecessary. Copyright is explicitly defined in law as a limited time monopoly granted by government. Don’t use the word “property” or “intellectual property” or any property based argument in discussing copyright. Even using the term concedes the point. Copyright is not property, it is a limited government-granted monopoly. Stick to that definition and don’t give any credence to “intellectual property is property “. It isn’t. You can discuss all other aspects of impact of copyright without agreeing that it is property.

xvedejas 3y ago
All property in my mind is a "government-granted monopoly", so it's confusing what distinction you're trying to draw.
- pessimizer 3y ago
  This is absolutely true, but when you talk about government-granted monopolies you can discuss things in their specifics. Confounding the possession of physical objects with any sort of government-issued imposition of rules on other people's behavior usually clouds this issue rather than illuminating it. Ownership of objects usually consists of restrictions on other people taking those objects from you or damaging those objects. When you remove the objects from this idea, it just becomes a restriction on other people.
- ronsor 3y ago
  "Property" is a natural concept since with physical objects you either have them or you don't. There may be many Teslas, but there is only one of your Tesla. On the other hand, digital content can be copied endlessly, without the original creator losing access to it.
  - grt_thr 3y ago
    [dead]
  - slondr 3y ago

subroutine 3y ago

Yes.

sideeffffect 3y ago

We need Copyright very much, it's the only way to enforce the so called Copyleft: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyleft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyleft

visarga 3y ago

It's probably going to be an unpopular opinion but does copyright make sense anymore when you can get content created for you on demand? assuming it will get good enough.

Gibbon1 3y ago
Reminds me of a drunkish conversation about software patents and copyright I had with my patent lawyer friend. He said the legitimate reason for both is to protect the real investment that was made. The classic is an author. Historically might write a couple of dozen major works of which maybe three have any long term value. Or a patent on some physical thing. The real world is NP Hard. His point about software patents and copyright is software isn't hard enough to be afforded that sort of protection. So I agree protection really aught to be based on how much effort + the reward structure. If we're just talking about rent seeking well fuck that.

doublepg23 3y ago

I support violating copyright by any technical means necessary. I’d like to imagine a future where copyright may exist on the books but is not treated with any respect in civil society.

darawk 3y ago

These are all great examples of where it is debatable whether copyright is useful. But I think there are fairly clearly some much more difficult cases to dismiss so easily. The biggest, strongest example is pharmaceuticals. It costs hundreds of millions of dollars to develop a new drug and get it through the approvals process. It costs almost nothing to copy the drug once its developed. Without the protection of copyright, nobody in their right mind would invest the money it takes to develop new pharmaceuticals. There are lots of important debates to be had about how pharmaceutical companies game that system in practice, and whether or not we should tweak the rules to make that harder. However, it seems undeniable to me that pharmaceutical innovation would completely grind to a halt if copyright were abolished.

xyzzy123 3y ago
Thats patents not copyright.
- darawk 3y ago
  Good point. I guess I'll leave my comment as is, but you are 100% correct.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

gwoolhurme 3y ago

Yes. We need copyright... we need to rework it for digital stuff, however if you are an artist, writer, musician, programmer. You should have credit for the work you put out in some way no?

lannisterstark 3y ago
I keep being genuinely baffled as someone who writes and has some minor published fictional works about how extreme people can get with this. Why shouldn't I have protection for works I created? What gives someone else the right to just take my story, add tidbits, sell it and make profit?
- EvanAnderson 3y ago
  You’ve grown up in a world where the idea that someone “owns” a song, a story, etc, is culturally normal. That doesn’t make it a law of nature. It’s just your culture. I find the culture of “ownership” of ideas morally repugnant. That’s not culture I perpetuate or encourage. I’m willing to tolerate some of in the form of limited time monopolies if it benefits humanity.
  - lannisterstark 3y ago
    >I find the culture of “ownership” of ideas morally repugnant I see that we're starting off with a misrepresentation already. Copyright isn't a patent. Copyright isn't solely ownership of 'ideas,' it's ownership of actual work. You cannot 'copyright' an idea. > It’s just your culture. I'm sure when it's the 'culture' of every single country in the world, it's an alright culture. >I’m willing to tolerate > That’s not culture I perpetuate or encourage. See what's great about this is that your extremist ideas are in a minority, and you do not get to make the laws. So what you're willing to 'tolerate' or not is irrelevant. No one is looking to you to 'encourage' or 'perpetuate' the culture. Demonizing artists by going "You don't own your own work, I should be able to own it, I made this!" will only get you so far. --- You shouldn't have free reign to profit off of artistic hard work of someone else without a way for them to benefit from that as well.

trhr 3y ago

Ha ha ha ha ha ha There are many ways to get what you want I use the best, well I use the rest Well I use the enemy I use anarchy 'Cause I, I want to be, anarchy Fuck the rat race man

jamilton 3y ago

I hope eventually the cultural consensus on current copyright law shifts to be more negative, so that it can eventually change. There are international agreements which probably would make it hard for any one country to significantly shorten copyright duration. I think a "reasonable" transitional copyright duration would be something like 70 years from publication. Basically the length of a life, strictly shorter than it is currently, not so short as to make corporations extremely upset, and no potential perverse incentives to kill someone to end their copyright. Shorter would be nicer though.

tiffanyg 3y ago

One point this author makes that I entirely agree with is that "copyright" has often been used to enforce forms of feudalism. And particularly odious forms, IMO. One of the relatively few issues that actually has angered me a fair bit in recent years is the hoarding of content by companies that basically act as "landlords" and often do as little as possible beyond that. In particular, I've had experiences with this as a researcher - doing the work and, these days, really doing all of the writing, editing, graphics, layout, etc. (i.e., "publishers" often don't do even the tiniest bit of traditional "publishing work" if at all possible) only to have the content then locked behind a paywall with websites demanding outrageous fees for access. I've also had experiences with this in trying to support musicians whose work I love. It's virtually impossible to buy music through any of the larger companies and have any reasonable % go to the artists! I've tried multiple times to find services with reasonably extensive catalogues where, oh, I don't know, say even 30% of the money I spend would go to the people who MADE the music, and I've failed each time I've looked! So, instead, I mostly acquire music in other ways, and try to give money directly to the people who made it (and professionals involved in its actual production etc.) in other ways. Now, I know if there's any forum in which I will be corrected if wrong, it's this one. And, I'd be grateful if anyone can point me to better options regarding music, and video (as well), etc. I've been heartened by some of the firms publishing books using better models - providing unencumbered PDFs and the like. Also, significant efforts in academic publishing to change models, like "eLife", the various PLoS journals, etc. But, like many industries with questionable / potentially fading justifications for their models / continued existences in current form, many "traditional publishers" of various kinds have only become more of a PITA in their activities as time continues to pass.

shmerl 3y ago

Even if we need it, its term should be reduced from current crazy length to something sensible.

WalterBright 3y ago

No, we don't. My dad slaved away for years writing his books. He knew they'd never make money, he did it for the academic reputation. Going over his papers after he passed, he made a few hundred dollars off of them. I expect that meant a couple pennies an hour for his labor. For another example, the current music industry is pretty much post-copyright. Musicians don't make money from streaming or CDs, they make it from live performances, performing at private events, endorsements, etc. As for me, I'm the CEO of the D Language Foundation, and we give away all our work for free under the most permissible license we could find - the Boost license.

kelnos 3y ago
> Musicians don't make money from streaming or CDs The main reason that's the case is due to record labels forcing musicians into bad deals, because they are often the gatekeepers to popularity. Some of the streaming platforms are better about this now, but the economics of streaming have been set by the record labels and the streaming companies, so even if it's a bad deal, independent artists just have to deal with it. This doesn't have to be the case, it's just where we've unfortunately ended up. > they make it from live performances, performing at private events, endorsements, etc. Sometimes musicians write songs that they don't perform themselves. They license the performance rights to others. Copyright enables that. These things are aided by copyright, though, even if the songwriter and performer is the same person. If a musician writes a song, and doesn't have copyright to protect it, other musicians could perform it as well. Maybe people start liking another performer's rendition more, and the original songwriter doesn't get to make money at live performances anymore, and gets no royalties from other performances. You could argue that's just tough luck, I suppose, but I don't think that's particularly fair. > My dad slaved away for years writing his books. He knew they'd never make money, he did it for the academic reputation. That's just a reflection of the idea that the value in a copyrighted work isn't necessarily monetary. Presumably your dad used the reputation he gained from writing those books for some purpose that was valuable to him. Without copyright, someone could have taken his work and used it for their own gains. After a while, the original provenance of his work may have gotten muddied enough that he couldn't use that work to enhance his own reputation anymore. > we give away all our work for free under the most permissible license we could find - the Boost license. That's great, but not everyone wants to do that. Who are you to say that no one should be able to retain GPL-like control over their software if they want? Who are you to say that someone shouldn't be allowed to release something while prohibiting commercial use? And hell, the Boost license is certainly not even the most permissible license available: it still requires that the copyright/license notice be included with any distributions or derived work. Copyright enables you to make that requirement. If you didn't want that requirement, then you could have released into the public domain (or licensed similarly to public domain, for jurisdictions that don't have that concept). You didn't do that, and your license relies on copyright in order to function. I will be the first person to agree that we need heavy copyright reform. DMCA should be gutted if not completely repealed. Copyright term should be reduced (the only thing from TFA I agree with) to something on the order of 20 years, or perhaps something where you have a shorter term with the option to renew for another short term if the work ends up being important to you. There should be no criminal penalties for copyright infringement; all of it should be dealt with in civil court, and monetary penalties should be based on what the infringer gained, not some made-up number that the rightsholder "lost". Unfortunately these reforms are unlikely.

BulgarianIdiot 3y ago

We needed it. But things changed now.

Eliah_Lakhin 3y ago

The truth is that the majority of software engineers have no idea how to write Software Licenses. And this is the last thing a programmer want to think about when starting a new programming project. So they pick up just some random, but widely used OSS license from Internet, as other people around do. This creates a self-supporting trend where picking something different to a widely used OSS license will look inappropriate. It is much easier to accept an idea that all you need to do is to use a "ready to use" license from Internet, rather than the idea that you should hire a lawyer to write you one, or worse to research the pack of corresponding laws and law practices by yourself. Of course the arguments of the opponents of Copyright and the proponents of the free-software expressed in plain English even reinforce this trend. My opinion is that we just can't have a fair discuss around this topic. To have such discussion we need more people who fairly tried to go both ways, but the current free-artist programmers community is too much shifted towards using of free licenses that basically bypass the majority of the benefits and the trade-offs the Copyright laws can offer.

BasedAnon 3y ago

We don't, and even if we did, it has proven to be unenforcable. What's color is your ratio?

LinAGKar 3y ago

>Most people learn about copyright in schools. Yes, we first learn about it when getting photocopies of books with copyright pages

amadeuspagel 3y ago

> First myth: Copyright is meant primarily to protect authors. > State-enforced copyright came about with the Statute of Anne in 1710. It was the result lobby of a group English publishers who sought to regain their monopoly on publishing. Handing out the initial copyright to the authors was a political gesture: the goal has always been to get authors to hand over the copyright to the publisher, effectively giving the publisher a monopoly. > In most countries, copyright holds for 70 years after the death of the author. Such a long-term copyright cannot possibly be meant to protect authors. Please ... I'm quite critical of copyright, particularly the extended terms, but these are absurd arguments, and any criticism of copyright that doesn't have the courage to question whether authors (and their descendants) should get a monopoly on their work for 70 years after their death is not worth considering. Historically, who lobbied for copyright and why is irrelevant. Authors and publishers obviously have the same interests here. If anyone questions copyright on twitter, even just the extended terms, they always get mobbed by a bunch of authors. As for the fact that copyright holds for 70 years after the death of the author, that is obviously also in the interest of the author and his descendents, because it makes the copyright more valuable. Even if the author doesn't care about his descendants, he can sell the copyright before his death for more money. We should ask ourselves how long copyright terms are necessary. We should make this judgement considering not only the interests of authors, but also those of readers, of society, of an intellectual discourse that everyone can participate in, not denying that the interests of authors might not perfectly overlap with those of society.