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Yes. By design. Copyright law, and basically all other IP law, is explicitly and purposefully about allowing rent seeking. The idea is that in a completely unre

Yes. By design. Copyright law, and basically all other IP law, is explicitly and purposefully about allowing rent seeking. The idea is that in a completely unregulated market, it is impossible to make money from ideas after they are made public. Since making ideas public is good for society, we want to encourage people to continue to do this. Paying people is how we encourage people to do things. So we allow rent seeking, with limits, as a way to pay people even though they make their ideas public. The issue is with how far this rent seeking goes, and where the balance between social good and private good falls. I'm very firmly in the camp that most IP law has, in the modern day, gone too far. But I do think that conceptually it is beneficial to have and maintain some level of rent seeking.

Ekaros 3y ago
I think IP laws make lot of sense and so does allowing protection of such. It is only effective way to stop corporations from exploiting creators they do not have direct relationship with. Not that the current term we have isn't extremely too long. And whole concept of lifetime being involved isn't just weird.
redwall_hp 3y ago
Of course, we now have a torrential supply of available media, which markets strongly say is worth little to nothing. Apparently, given mass distribution tools and sufficient level of education, the public creates things on such a large scale that it can hardly be argued protectionist policies are necessary for them to exist. We also see that even with these protectionist policies, only a select few are ever even able to be economically viable, let alone successful. Art's opportunity cost is so front-loaded that it's difficult to produce things while working full time, so the majority of potential successes are prevented from even starting. And then the artistic process is impeded by these laws, as rentiers cry "similarity" over the most absurd things, which creates a chilling effect. It's particularly bad in music. The best way to support the arts is UBI and the abolition of copyright.
- WWLink 3y ago
  lol imagine if someone had copyright over 2-5-1 chord progressions lmao.
colordrops 3y ago
> The idea is that in a completely unregulated market, it is impossible to make money from ideas after they are made public. Since making ideas public is good for society, we want to encourage people to continue to do this. This reasoning is taken at face value in most discussion but should be challenged. A lot of assumptions and potentially specious logic is embedded here, and it's not clear and obvious that any of the following are true: * it is impossible to make money from ideas after they are made public * Paying people to encourage making ideas public increases the amount of value * most ideas are worth anything at all * that the most valuable ideas will be made public even with these protection regimes in place It's arguable that even though there was less information out there before copyrights and patents became a thing, that people were still driven to create art and science, and the quality per unit might have even been higher. And even with patent and copyright in place, truly valuable ideas are still kept secret. The core value proposition of copyrights and patents is to make middlemen money.
- a-dub 3y ago
  > The core value proposition of copyrights and patents is to make middlemen money. they also protect smaller and potentially more innovative operations from being out-executed by large capital pools. i know that often times patents have been used by larger and more entrenched concerns to try and control entire spaces (like edison's mppc) but i often wonder how often the patent system has provided some breathing room and opportunity to build something of value for startups working in areas that large players come to identify as potentially profitable...
surgical_fire 3y ago
> So we allow rent seeking, with limits Funny joke. Everybody laughs.
laserlight 3y ago
> Since making ideas public is good for society, we want to encourage people to continue to do this. Paying people is how we encourage people to do things. So we allow rent seeking, with limits, as a way to pay people even though they make their ideas public. This is naive reasoning. People have been publishing content without any DRM and have been earning money regardless. There are even people who don't care whether they make money or not. So, monetary incentive is not a must for ideas, or any kind of work, to become public. To the contrary, such incentives drive out good ideas, or works, in favor of bad ones, which only care about the money and not the benefit of the society.
sph 3y ago
> The idea is that in a completely unregulated market, it is impossible to make money from ideas after they are made public. Ain't that some bullshit.

Ekaros 3y ago

I think IP laws make lot of sense and so does allowing protection of such. It is only effective way to stop corporations from exploiting creators they do not have direct relationship with. Not that the current term we have isn't extremely too long. And whole concept of lifetime being involved isn't just weird.

redwall_hp 3y ago

Of course, we now have a torrential supply of available media, which markets strongly say is worth little to nothing. Apparently, given mass distribution tools and sufficient level of education, the public creates things on such a large scale that it can hardly be argued protectionist policies are necessary for them to exist. We also see that even with these protectionist policies, only a select few are ever even able to be economically viable, let alone successful. Art's opportunity cost is so front-loaded that it's difficult to produce things while working full time, so the majority of potential successes are prevented from even starting. And then the artistic process is impeded by these laws, as rentiers cry "similarity" over the most absurd things, which creates a chilling effect. It's particularly bad in music. The best way to support the arts is UBI and the abolition of copyright.

WWLink 3y ago
lol imagine if someone had copyright over 2-5-1 chord progressions lmao.

colordrops 3y ago

> The idea is that in a completely unregulated market, it is impossible to make money from ideas after they are made public. Since making ideas public is good for society, we want to encourage people to continue to do this. This reasoning is taken at face value in most discussion but should be challenged. A lot of assumptions and potentially specious logic is embedded here, and it's not clear and obvious that any of the following are true: * it is impossible to make money from ideas after they are made public * Paying people to encourage making ideas public increases the amount of value * most ideas are worth anything at all * that the most valuable ideas will be made public even with these protection regimes in place It's arguable that even though there was less information out there before copyrights and patents became a thing, that people were still driven to create art and science, and the quality per unit might have even been higher. And even with patent and copyright in place, truly valuable ideas are still kept secret. The core value proposition of copyrights and patents is to make middlemen money.

a-dub 3y ago
> The core value proposition of copyrights and patents is to make middlemen money. they also protect smaller and potentially more innovative operations from being out-executed by large capital pools. i know that often times patents have been used by larger and more entrenched concerns to try and control entire spaces (like edison's mppc) but i often wonder how often the patent system has provided some breathing room and opportunity to build something of value for startups working in areas that large players come to identify as potentially profitable...

surgical_fire 3y ago

> So we allow rent seeking, with limits Funny joke. Everybody laughs.

laserlight 3y ago

> Since making ideas public is good for society, we want to encourage people to continue to do this. Paying people is how we encourage people to do things. So we allow rent seeking, with limits, as a way to pay people even though they make their ideas public. This is naive reasoning. People have been publishing content without any DRM and have been earning money regardless. There are even people who don't care whether they make money or not. So, monetary incentive is not a must for ideas, or any kind of work, to become public. To the contrary, such incentives drive out good ideas, or works, in favor of bad ones, which only care about the money and not the benefit of the society.

sph 3y ago

> The idea is that in a completely unregulated market, it is impossible to make money from ideas after they are made public. Ain't that some bullshit.