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> I think most people would agree that the physical trades and the arts are not well-suited for comparisons. How is the writing of a book, the production of a

> I think most people would agree that the physical trades and the arts are not well-suited for comparisons. How is the writing of a book, the production of a movie or the recording of a song any different from the building of a bridge, the drafting of a contract, or the provision of management consultancy? How are they "fundamentally too different" if it's not the way we pay for them? But more importantly, how is is that we see this difference as so fundamental that we afford protection to an artist (or more accurately, their publishers and the industry that surrounds them) via copyright for so long?

Brian_K_White 3y ago
Simple. If I fashion a shovel and sell it to you, the value I got is the $20 or whatever, and the value you got is the indefinite use of one shovel. You do not get to clone the shovel by magic for about .1 cent and sell 50M copies of it for $20 each for the next forever.
- ProxCoques 3y ago
  If the copyright system existed for shovels in that analogy, nobody else could make a shovel like yours during your lifetime, and for about 50 years after that, during which time your rights holders would get rich and shovel design would stand still. Again - the copyright system as it currently exists needs to die. 7 years protection is enuogh.
  - Brian_K_White 3y ago
    The question was how is the value of the labor of an author different from the value of the labor of a plumber. There is a difference, and part of the difference is that if someone wants another sink installed tomorrow, they have to hire the plumber again to do another days work, while the authors work can be copied for free and, if allowed, a company will happily pay the author $50 one time, and then resell that same work 500 million times over for $50 each. The point was not to defend the current copyright system and certainly not some of the more notable abusers. You asked a question, and that that is one part of the answer. Writing a book or doing any form of creative information-product work is different from doing physical-product or service work.

Brian_K_White 3y ago

Simple. If I fashion a shovel and sell it to you, the value I got is the $20 or whatever, and the value you got is the indefinite use of one shovel. You do not get to clone the shovel by magic for about .1 cent and sell 50M copies of it for $20 each for the next forever.

ProxCoques 3y ago
If the copyright system existed for shovels in that analogy, nobody else could make a shovel like yours during your lifetime, and for about 50 years after that, during which time your rights holders would get rich and shovel design would stand still. Again - the copyright system as it currently exists needs to die. 7 years protection is enuogh.
- Brian_K_White 3y ago
  The question was how is the value of the labor of an author different from the value of the labor of a plumber. There is a difference, and part of the difference is that if someone wants another sink installed tomorrow, they have to hire the plumber again to do another days work, while the authors work can be copied for free and, if allowed, a company will happily pay the author $50 one time, and then resell that same work 500 million times over for $50 each. The point was not to defend the current copyright system and certainly not some of the more notable abusers. You asked a question, and that that is one part of the answer. Writing a book or doing any form of creative information-product work is different from doing physical-product or service work.