5 ms·

>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, musi

>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.
  - throwawaymaths 3y ago
    > I think artists who create original works should be given power to capture value produced by their labor Nobody thinks artists should not have that power. The relevant question is should artists be able to impinge on the freedom of other people to do what they want. If I am riding a bike, and you take my bike, that deprives me the use of said bike, and I have to take the bus. That is that theft looks like. If I write a song and you copy the song and start charging audiences to come to a performance or sell a cd, I can still charge audiences to come to a performance or sell a cd. In fact it is often the case that artists are more successful after someone has copied their work than before.
ipaddr 3y ago
"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" A composer shouldn't own a sequence of notes. An artist shouldn't own a sequence of color on paper. Pure art and producing work for money are polar opposites. Anyone producing art for money can hardly be called an artist.
- zdragnar 3y ago
  "No true Scotsman" at its finest. You're also basically arguing the only people who should be artists are the independently wealthy. I'd rather have moderately long lived copyright than lose the works of the many artists I've enjoyed who make a living from what they produce.
  - EvanAnderson 3y ago
    The perversion of “limited times” in the current US copyright regime fosters these extreme opinions. It’s a social contract. At present, it’s not an equitable example of one.
- kelnos 3y ago
  "Shouldn't" is entirely your opinion, and many people happen to disagree with it. Ultimately what should actually matter is what makes the world a better/best place for the most people. Our current copyright regime isn't doing that, but it's not at all clear that having no copyright at all would be better than having some much more limited form of copyright.

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.
- throwawaymaths 3y ago
  > I think artists who create original works should be given power to capture value produced by their labor Nobody thinks artists should not have that power. The relevant question is should artists be able to impinge on the freedom of other people to do what they want. If I am riding a bike, and you take my bike, that deprives me the use of said bike, and I have to take the bus. That is that theft looks like. If I write a song and you copy the song and start charging audiences to come to a performance or sell a cd, I can still charge audiences to come to a performance or sell a cd. In fact it is often the case that artists are more successful after someone has copied their work than before.

ipaddr 3y ago

"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" A composer shouldn't own a sequence of notes. An artist shouldn't own a sequence of color on paper. Pure art and producing work for money are polar opposites. Anyone producing art for money can hardly be called an artist.

zdragnar 3y ago
"No true Scotsman" at its finest. You're also basically arguing the only people who should be artists are the independently wealthy. I'd rather have moderately long lived copyright than lose the works of the many artists I've enjoyed who make a living from what they produce.
- EvanAnderson 3y ago
  The perversion of “limited times” in the current US copyright regime fosters these extreme opinions. It’s a social contract. At present, it’s not an equitable example of one.
kelnos 3y ago
"Shouldn't" is entirely your opinion, and many people happen to disagree with it. Ultimately what should actually matter is what makes the world a better/best place for the most people. Our current copyright regime isn't doing that, but it's not at all clear that having no copyright at all would be better than having some much more limited form of copyright.