3 ms·

First, copyright is not "ownership of information" Copyright is acknowledgement of creatorship Without copyright, I can claim to be the author of Romeo and Ju

First, copyright is not "ownership of information" Copyright is acknowledgement of creatorship Without copyright, I can claim to be the author of Romeo and Juliet or Harry Potter or The Firm - and you can never prove me wrong Look at countries around the world that either do not recognize or enforce copyright from other locations (or which have no concept for native productions) if you want to know what a "world without copyright" would look like ... it exists already around the globe

mdb77 3y ago
The original post's point goes beyond mere recognition of authorship. Copyright effectively grants creators control over their work's reproduction, distribution, and adaptation. However, the idea of someone falsely claiming authorship of works like "Romeo and Juliet" or "Harry Potter," even without copyright laws, historical evidence and publishing records would easily prove authorship. But this isn't the point of the original discussion.
- warrenm 3y ago
  Apparently you missed my point entirely when using those examples - I could have picked any arbitrary item that was created by someone else and claim ownership/creatorship In the end, it comes down to a "he said, she said" problem - especially given, for example, 2 of those 3 were published within my lifetime Lawsuits arise all the time over creation rights (eg the lawsuit against Zuckerburg over who "actually" created Facebook) - so no, mere "historical evidence and publishing records" are not sufficient on their own to determine creatorship
CrypticShift 3y ago
> First, copyright is not "ownership of information" This is historically a very good point. Although I'm not versed in the specifics of legal jargon, it's hard to ignore that the practical enforcement of copyright laws in the U.S. seems to have skewed dangerously close to proprietary rights. Consequently, you've pointed us toward the real question: What would a world where copyright had a different meaning look like? One must look at the history of copyright (or around the world) to appreciate how convoluted the evolution of its (subtle) meaning has been over the centuries.
golol 3y ago
Well we live in a world where cryptographic methods exist so solving identification and attribution is theoretically possible without any laws.
- warrenm 3y ago
  For digital-only assets ... MAYBE (though, even a decade and a half in, we still do not know who Satoshi Nakamoto is - if even IF "he" is... and that is with one of the better attribution protocols out there) For physical assets (eg paintings), no digital "identification and attribution" could be sufficient Which is precisely why property rights (including copyRIGHT - ie the right to copy something) are enforced by force of law Without such enforcement, disbursement of creativity would plummet - outside of a relatively-insignificantly-sized population who likes giving stuff away, why would any sane person want to create something that not only could be stolen and redistributed sans attribution, but that would be?
  - golol 3y ago
    >why would any sane person want to create something that not only could be stolen and redistributed sans attribution, but that would be? Well it wouldn't work with current business models, but maybe something would emerge? Some indie games or open source projects live off donations. Kickstarters exist. And of course completely free art exists. Also, if you design a chip, or a phone, or a car, I'm not sure if it's really the copyright that's stopping other people from stealing your idea. It's the tools, the people and the understanding relate dto your idea that they don't have.
    - warrenm 3y ago
      >but maybe something would emerge? Some indie games or open source projects live off donations. Kickstarters exist. And of course completely free art exists Sure - "free" (or efectively "free" (to the majority of users/enjoyers) items exist Patronage existed for millennia before the Rennaissance (and does still ... albeit in the form of member-only access and/or "publicly-funded" works) But ... that model leads to markedly closed-off generation of new work - either it is generated for private use, it is generated for "specific" public use (eg to enjoy the statue in the town square), or (in a very small handful of cases) is generated on the "good graces" of the creator (eg Tom Lehrer turning his work over to the public domain a couple years ago ... though for the previous 50+ years, it was all under copyright (and, FWIW, still is copyrighted by Lehrer, it has just been opened to the public))
golol 3y ago
I probably used the wrong words, buy instead of copyright maybe I mean exactly ownership of information, that is, intellectual property.
- CrypticShift 3y ago
  In a late-stage capitalist society (i.e., heavily dematerialized), you're almost asking, "What would a capitalistic world without ownership look like?" That sounds like an oxymoron to me.
  - golol 3y ago
    Hmmm good point, I was going to say ownership of physical things can be treated fundamentally differently from ownership of information, but in a theoretical less and less physically grounded world that doesn't seem like the right conception of ownership.

mdb77 3y ago

The original post's point goes beyond mere recognition of authorship. Copyright effectively grants creators control over their work's reproduction, distribution, and adaptation. However, the idea of someone falsely claiming authorship of works like "Romeo and Juliet" or "Harry Potter," even without copyright laws, historical evidence and publishing records would easily prove authorship. But this isn't the point of the original discussion.

warrenm 3y ago
Apparently you missed my point entirely when using those examples - I could have picked any arbitrary item that was created by someone else and claim ownership/creatorship In the end, it comes down to a "he said, she said" problem - especially given, for example, 2 of those 3 were published within my lifetime Lawsuits arise all the time over creation rights (eg the lawsuit against Zuckerburg over who "actually" created Facebook) - so no, mere "historical evidence and publishing records" are not sufficient on their own to determine creatorship

CrypticShift 3y ago

> First, copyright is not "ownership of information" This is historically a very good point. Although I'm not versed in the specifics of legal jargon, it's hard to ignore that the practical enforcement of copyright laws in the U.S. seems to have skewed dangerously close to proprietary rights. Consequently, you've pointed us toward the real question: What would a world where copyright had a different meaning look like? One must look at the history of copyright (or around the world) to appreciate how convoluted the evolution of its (subtle) meaning has been over the centuries.

golol 3y ago

Well we live in a world where cryptographic methods exist so solving identification and attribution is theoretically possible without any laws.

warrenm 3y ago
For digital-only assets ... MAYBE (though, even a decade and a half in, we still do not know who Satoshi Nakamoto is - if even IF "he" is... and that is with one of the better attribution protocols out there) For physical assets (eg paintings), no digital "identification and attribution" could be sufficient Which is precisely why property rights (including copyRIGHT - ie the right to copy something) are enforced by force of law Without such enforcement, disbursement of creativity would plummet - outside of a relatively-insignificantly-sized population who likes giving stuff away, why would any sane person want to create something that not only could be stolen and redistributed sans attribution, but that would be?
- golol 3y ago
  >why would any sane person want to create something that not only could be stolen and redistributed sans attribution, but that would be? Well it wouldn't work with current business models, but maybe something would emerge? Some indie games or open source projects live off donations. Kickstarters exist. And of course completely free art exists. Also, if you design a chip, or a phone, or a car, I'm not sure if it's really the copyright that's stopping other people from stealing your idea. It's the tools, the people and the understanding relate dto your idea that they don't have.
  - warrenm 3y ago
    >but maybe something would emerge? Some indie games or open source projects live off donations. Kickstarters exist. And of course completely free art exists Sure - "free" (or efectively "free" (to the majority of users/enjoyers) items exist Patronage existed for millennia before the Rennaissance (and does still ... albeit in the form of member-only access and/or "publicly-funded" works) But ... that model leads to markedly closed-off generation of new work - either it is generated for private use, it is generated for "specific" public use (eg to enjoy the statue in the town square), or (in a very small handful of cases) is generated on the "good graces" of the creator (eg Tom Lehrer turning his work over to the public domain a couple years ago ... though for the previous 50+ years, it was all under copyright (and, FWIW, still is copyrighted by Lehrer, it has just been opened to the public))

golol 3y ago

I probably used the wrong words, buy instead of copyright maybe I mean exactly ownership of information, that is, intellectual property.

CrypticShift 3y ago
In a late-stage capitalist society (i.e., heavily dematerialized), you're almost asking, "What would a capitalistic world without ownership look like?" That sounds like an oxymoron to me.
- golol 3y ago
  Hmmm good point, I was going to say ownership of physical things can be treated fundamentally differently from ownership of information, but in a theoretical less and less physically grounded world that doesn't seem like the right conception of ownership.