3 ms·

The solution here is to abolish copyright. It is a law intended for publishers not individuals, which results in this kind of abusive exploitation when applied

The solution here is to abolish copyright. It is a law intended for publishers not individuals, which results in this kind of abusive exploitation when applied to individuals who have little means to defend themselves. No, really. We live in a post-scarcity world when it comes to information, but artificially keep pretending it is scarce. Of course that will cause problems. Keeping copyright in a post-scarcity world is like forcing every individual to jump through financial regulation hoops intended for corporations each time they buy their morning coffee.

chrisjj 3y ago
Publisher individuals are a thing.
- _Algernon_ 3y ago
  They weren't when copyright was created which is the point. Hence the metaphor for financial regulation and coffee.
olliej 3y ago
"The solution here is to abolish copyright" If you abolish copyright, then open source licenses cease mattering. The GPL only works because a corporation can only use GPL software if it agrees to the license, but if there is no copyright then there is nothing for the license to gate access to. Alternatively if you take the more recent argument that "the GPL is a contract not a license", then the contract also does not work because a core component of contract law is that a contract must have some kind of reasonable exchange and if there's no copyright the source software has no value (IANAL but the gist as I understand it is you can't have a contract that exchanges something for nothing). If you think software is bad now, wait until every piece of software, even the non-game ones, basically operates in the cloud so you never get direct access to any of the actual software because if you can download and run it locally you can give it to anyone. You also ensure that authors of music and books cannot make money, because they have no ownership of the work they produce. What your copyright-free world does is give a huge advantage to corporations with huge amounts of cash over pretty much everyone else.
- _Algernon_ 3y ago
  >What your copyright-free world does is give a huge advantage to corporations with huge amounts of cash over pretty much everyone else. At worst maintaining the status quo, in other words.
  - olliej 3y ago
    Um no? Plenty of individual developers currently earn their living writing single apps. In the lack of copyright, a corporation can just directly include that developer's software in the products they sell. The only way for such a developer to make a living is to go and work directly for those corporations. You may say "well I can just copy their software", except of course the large corporations are able to afford the server infrastructure for licensing servers, DRM nonsense, and the gradual movement of all software onto their infrastructure. People pirate MS office because it's possible, they don't pirate google docs because they literally can't. If you're a developer trying to make a living selling software without working for a corporation, you would now need to be able to afford enough always online hardware to support all your customers. You can't sell your product and move on, now you have ongoing costs, so it even becomes a question as to whether you can have single purchase price or you have to switch to subscription software. The other alternative you have is to switch to the google advertising+spying business model, but that requires scale, so you're going to have to be selling your customer information to google, etc now. Copyright exists so that you can create something, and earn a living from selling it. If you cannot earn a living from it, your only option is to work for a person or company who has the capital to support either not charging or running services to ensure people have to pay for it, or that are subsidizing your work from selling other products. If you remove copyright, you roll back the ability of many people to make income directly by a few centuries. Basically you're saying "if you aren't constructing something that physically exists it has no value, so you better find an employer or patron".
mistrial9 3y ago
friend, I deeply disagree with your conclusion and your reasoning. The current situation is in need of guidance and new rules certainly. However the strident "don't do this to us" approach is wrong-headed from my own experiences and knowledge. There are a dozen major economic systems across the globe with billions of people involved, and those system do not agree with each other on this topic. There is no single answer for all people, all markets and at all times. In the USA and Western Europe, copyright is a foundation of individual authors and also companies, and builds an economic system of exchange that has worked in many cases, and for long periods of time. Abuses by powerful entities are not the reason to throw the entire system out, with insults and broad generalizations IMO.
Robin_Message 3y ago
I'm confused by this argument. Copyright exists in order that creative works are sold for more than their marginal cost of reproduction, and the profits from that are directed towards the author. Having the exclusive right to produce the copies, copyright, enabled creativity to be rewarded. Making distribution cheaper and easier makes copyright perhaps make more sense, not less, but didn't change the underlying logic of trying needing to sell creative works for more than their marginal reproduction cost, even if you figure that cost is zero. Except for scientific publishing. Burn that all down. Because the authors aren't getting any money (and actually want distribution, not payment) so copyright of scientific works isn't achieving anything positive for society at all.
- hakfoo 3y ago
  The underlying conceit is that a marketplace-oriented model is the only, or even the right, way to encourage creative work. A significant amount of the spend on creative works goes to overhead pretty much only enabled by copyright. No copyright means a massive reduction in legal and accounting complexity. I'd suspect copyright also tends to encourage a "short tail" of highly successful works. We only have one official source for Oppenheimer or Stairway to Heaven, rather than thousands of tweaked and extended versions sharing the same market. Relying on market forces to bankroll creativity also optimizes for a weird niche-- familiar enough to be easily saleable, but distinct enough to avoid legal hassle. Does it incentivize pushing the envelope? We could take the $28 bazillion a year we spend on content as a society, pipe it into endowments and grants, and increase the number of professional creatives. Yes, this might have to be administered as a tax-and-spend by the state, but it's certainly an alternative to consider.
smaudet 3y ago
Not even true. Anything you say is copyrighted. This comment is copyrighted. I have the legal ability to sue if this is reproduced without my permission. Publishers yes have an outsized voice, however the solution is not to abolish copyright but to make repercussions for publishers much more onerous. DMCA needs to be immediately abolished in its current form and instead replaced with a law that a) requires proof of ownership b) proof of identity c) provides comparatively heavy cost for fabrication (submit a false claim, be liable for 1-10k in damages, just for the claim). Further, repeating truth should not be criminalized. If both myself and another entity want to accurately submit the sky is blue, one of us should not be able to sue the other. So then a takedown becomes strictly a matter of enforceable copyright rather than the current complete nonsense that it is now.

chrisjj 3y ago

Publisher individuals are a thing.

_Algernon_ 3y ago
They weren't when copyright was created which is the point. Hence the metaphor for financial regulation and coffee.

olliej 3y ago

"The solution here is to abolish copyright" If you abolish copyright, then open source licenses cease mattering. The GPL only works because a corporation can only use GPL software if it agrees to the license, but if there is no copyright then there is nothing for the license to gate access to. Alternatively if you take the more recent argument that "the GPL is a contract not a license", then the contract also does not work because a core component of contract law is that a contract must have some kind of reasonable exchange and if there's no copyright the source software has no value (IANAL but the gist as I understand it is you can't have a contract that exchanges something for nothing). If you think software is bad now, wait until every piece of software, even the non-game ones, basically operates in the cloud so you never get direct access to any of the actual software because if you can download and run it locally you can give it to anyone. You also ensure that authors of music and books cannot make money, because they have no ownership of the work they produce. What your copyright-free world does is give a huge advantage to corporations with huge amounts of cash over pretty much everyone else.

_Algernon_ 3y ago
>What your copyright-free world does is give a huge advantage to corporations with huge amounts of cash over pretty much everyone else. At worst maintaining the status quo, in other words.
- olliej 3y ago
  Um no? Plenty of individual developers currently earn their living writing single apps. In the lack of copyright, a corporation can just directly include that developer's software in the products they sell. The only way for such a developer to make a living is to go and work directly for those corporations. You may say "well I can just copy their software", except of course the large corporations are able to afford the server infrastructure for licensing servers, DRM nonsense, and the gradual movement of all software onto their infrastructure. People pirate MS office because it's possible, they don't pirate google docs because they literally can't. If you're a developer trying to make a living selling software without working for a corporation, you would now need to be able to afford enough always online hardware to support all your customers. You can't sell your product and move on, now you have ongoing costs, so it even becomes a question as to whether you can have single purchase price or you have to switch to subscription software. The other alternative you have is to switch to the google advertising+spying business model, but that requires scale, so you're going to have to be selling your customer information to google, etc now. Copyright exists so that you can create something, and earn a living from selling it. If you cannot earn a living from it, your only option is to work for a person or company who has the capital to support either not charging or running services to ensure people have to pay for it, or that are subsidizing your work from selling other products. If you remove copyright, you roll back the ability of many people to make income directly by a few centuries. Basically you're saying "if you aren't constructing something that physically exists it has no value, so you better find an employer or patron".

mistrial9 3y ago

friend, I deeply disagree with your conclusion and your reasoning. The current situation is in need of guidance and new rules certainly. However the strident "don't do this to us" approach is wrong-headed from my own experiences and knowledge. There are a dozen major economic systems across the globe with billions of people involved, and those system do not agree with each other on this topic. There is no single answer for all people, all markets and at all times. In the USA and Western Europe, copyright is a foundation of individual authors and also companies, and builds an economic system of exchange that has worked in many cases, and for long periods of time. Abuses by powerful entities are not the reason to throw the entire system out, with insults and broad generalizations IMO.

Robin_Message 3y ago

I'm confused by this argument. Copyright exists in order that creative works are sold for more than their marginal cost of reproduction, and the profits from that are directed towards the author. Having the exclusive right to produce the copies, copyright, enabled creativity to be rewarded. Making distribution cheaper and easier makes copyright perhaps make more sense, not less, but didn't change the underlying logic of trying needing to sell creative works for more than their marginal reproduction cost, even if you figure that cost is zero. Except for scientific publishing. Burn that all down. Because the authors aren't getting any money (and actually want distribution, not payment) so copyright of scientific works isn't achieving anything positive for society at all.

hakfoo 3y ago
The underlying conceit is that a marketplace-oriented model is the only, or even the right, way to encourage creative work. A significant amount of the spend on creative works goes to overhead pretty much only enabled by copyright. No copyright means a massive reduction in legal and accounting complexity. I'd suspect copyright also tends to encourage a "short tail" of highly successful works. We only have one official source for Oppenheimer or Stairway to Heaven, rather than thousands of tweaked and extended versions sharing the same market. Relying on market forces to bankroll creativity also optimizes for a weird niche-- familiar enough to be easily saleable, but distinct enough to avoid legal hassle. Does it incentivize pushing the envelope? We could take the $28 bazillion a year we spend on content as a society, pipe it into endowments and grants, and increase the number of professional creatives. Yes, this might have to be administered as a tax-and-spend by the state, but it's certainly an alternative to consider.

smaudet 3y ago

Not even true. Anything you say is copyrighted. This comment is copyrighted. I have the legal ability to sue if this is reproduced without my permission. Publishers yes have an outsized voice, however the solution is not to abolish copyright but to make repercussions for publishers much more onerous. DMCA needs to be immediately abolished in its current form and instead replaced with a law that a) requires proof of ownership b) proof of identity c) provides comparatively heavy cost for fabrication (submit a false claim, be liable for 1-10k in damages, just for the claim). Further, repeating truth should not be criminalized. If both myself and another entity want to accurately submit the sky is blue, one of us should not be able to sue the other. So then a takedown becomes strictly a matter of enforceable copyright rather than the current complete nonsense that it is now.