10 ms·

Why should an author be forced to give away their work for free? They can already choose to give it away for free if they wish. We already have the Creative Co

Why should an author be forced to give away their work for free? They can already choose to give it away for free if they wish. We already have the Creative Commons licenses, and there are many open textbook projects.

PostOnce 2y ago
Dead authors can't choose to give away their works, they're dead. Yet someone still owns the rights 60 years later.
- spankalee 2y ago
  That says nothing about the living authors.
- throwAGIway 2y ago
  If an author sells the rights and does, should the buyer automatically lose what they bought? Sounds like that would severely decrease what authors can earn, especially older ones.
  - kibwen 2y ago
    There's no reason that "selling copyrights" needs to a be a thing. If the author themself wants to profit from their work, sure, but once they die, that's it, and there's no excuse for it to not be in the public domain at that point.
    - encomiast 2y ago
      So the wife that supported the author can't profit off their assets? The author can't pass on this to children? Should we do the same thing for other property like land and money?
      - anigbrowl 2y ago
        This kind of hectoring discourse is aggressive and rude. You can do better. Authors that get paid can certainly leave the assets they received to their families. They could also transfer ownership of unpublished intangible assets. More than that sucks the general public into a quasi-contractual relationship with a posthumous person; I disclaim fiscal obligations of strangers toward ghosts.
        encomiast 2y ago
        But it's not hectoring (and was not intended to be rude). Authors build things. Just like people who build companies, houses, inventions, etc. There are a lot of theories of how ownership happen, but many (at least in the US and Europe) come from some for of the labor theory of ownership. We own the things we put labor into and create. Unless you have a competing theory of ownership that explains why other assets can benefit the family of those who create things of value after death but not works of art, music, writing, etc., you haven't really made a cogent argument. Calling me rude is just an ad hominem argument, which we shouldn't entertain as serious.
        adgjlsfhk1 2y ago
        The big difference between copyright and propery is that me owning a table doesn't stop someone else from making a similar looking table. Copyright that lasted forever would mean that new adaptations of anything could never be made without licensing from the hedge fund that had bought up the original rights from 500 years ago.
        chii 2y ago
        > owning a table doesn't stop someone else from making a similar looking table. and copyright doesnt prevent you from writing a story about a boy wizard attending a school and fighting against a evil big bad. Nor does it prevent you from writing a story about a rag tag group of rebels fighting against an empire.
    - shagie 2y ago
      Lets change from "selling" to "assigning". Could you assign the copyrights to a corporation (that then doesn't die). Would that prevent them from going into the public domain? If I write some software and assign its copyright to the Apache Foundation or FSF or some other organization through a CLA, what happens to the license if I kick the bucket tomorrow? For that matter, what happens if I don't assign its copyright to some other organization... does all the GPL software that I write suddenly become public domain? If no, there is reason for it to remain under the GPL or Apache license so that it can continue on in the spirit of the license it was created under (which copyright enforces) ... then there is equal reason for the works of an author or photographer or singer or song writer to also remain under copyright for some duration. https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/pragmatic.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/pragmatic.en.html > My work on free software is motivated by an idealistic goal: spreading freedom and cooperation. I want to encourage free software to spread, replacing proprietary software that forbids cooperation, and thus make our society better. > That's the basic reason why the GNU General Public License is written the way it is—as a copyleft. All code added to a GPL-covered program must be free software, even if it is put in a separate file. I make my code available for use in free software, and not for use in proprietary software, in order to encourage other people who write software to make it free as well. I figure that since proprietary software developers use copyright to stop us from sharing, we cooperators can use copyright to give other cooperators an advantage of their own: they can use our code. If the GPLed project lost all of its teeth upon the untimely death of a contributor, would that be a bad thing?
      - cookiengineer 2y ago
        What do you think was the real reason for all the remakes of Disney movies that happened the last decade? Copyright terms were running out. Also, by your logic, every contributor of a project, contemporary or previously, must die in order for the "GPL losing its teeth".
        shagie 2y ago
        And there is a different copyright (rather than on the text or video production) - the copyright protection for fictional characters. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_protection_for_fictional_characters https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_protection_for_ficti... -- For Linux, the "every contributor" might be true. For a lot of other projects, they've got a CLA in place. https://www.mongodb.com/legal/contributor-agreement https://www.mongodb.com/legal/contributor-agreement (a) Assignment. By submitting a Contribution, you assign to MongoDB all right, title and interest in any copyright you have in the Contribution, and you waive any rights, including any moral rights, database rights, etc., that may affect our ownership of the copyright in the Contribution. When does MongoDB die? Jokes aside, whatever the answer is, as long as it is longer than any contributor, that's an out. Consider also the "I don't know who you cookiengineer are, therefore I assert that you're dead and the copyright on your previous comment has expired and I'll just slurp this up into an LLM training model." https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/302 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/302 (c) Anonymous Works, Pseudonymous Works, and Works Made for Hire.— In the case of an anonymous work, a pseudonymous work, or a work made for hire, the copyright endures for a term of 95 years from the year of its first publication, or a term of 120 years from the year of its creation, whichever expires first. If, before the end of such term, the identity of one or more of the authors of an anonymous or pseudonymous work is revealed in the records of a registration made for that work under subsections (a) or (d) of section 408, or in the records provided by this subsection, the copyright in the work endures for the term specified by subsection (a) or (b), based on the life of the author or authors whose identity has been revealed. ... (e) Presumption as to Author’s Death.— After a period of 95 years from the year of first publication of a work, or a period of 120 years from the year of its creation, whichever expires first, any person who obtains from the Copyright Office a certified report that the records provided by subsection (d) disclose nothing to indicate that the author of the work is living, or died less than 70 years before, is entitled to the benefits of a presumption that the author has been dead for at least 70 years. Reliance in good faith upon this presumption shall be a complete defense to any action for infringement under this title. It is certainly reasonable to argue that 95-120 years from its publication is too long, but the copyright your comments (and other works) do not require me to dox you to determine if they're expired or not. Having copyright on anonymous or psuedoanonymous or being able to assign copyright to another entity are incompatible with copyright expiring upon the death of the author. Resetting that number back to 50 years as covered by the Berne Convention would be a good thing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Convention#Term_of_protection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Convention#Term_of_prote... Having it be less than 50 years implies that the United States would be leaving the Berne Convention (signed by 181 countries) and that would put the United States in very small group of countries that do not recognize any intellectual property laws https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_parties_to_international_copyright_agreements#Table_of_parties https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_parties_to_internation... Trying to change the copyright to a very short period implies that the United States would be leaving the Berne Convention and TRIPS and the WTO and would go about trying to renegotiate those treaties with about 200 countries all over again (and getting those treaties signed by congress)
    - BHSPitMonkey 2y ago
      > If the author themself wants to profit from their work, sure, but once they die, that's it, and there's no excuse for it to not be in the public domain at that point. So if Disney wants to make a TV show out of your novel series and you turn them down, I suppose they now have an alternative way of making the problem disappear and getting the outcome they wanted... Joking aside, this idea really seems to create a perverse incentive to make authors die sooner.
  - dabraham1248 2y ago
    > Sounds like that would severely decrease what authors can earn, especially older ones. I mean, I know a bunch of authors. All of them wrote because they needed to write (even the textbook authors). And almost none of them earned much of anything from it (even the textbook authors). One English prof told me that he received almost enough for his morning coffee for about three years. Then he didn't. And he drank just plain coffee. "The problem for most artists isn't piracy, it's obscurity." "Less copyright" != "piracy", but I think it has the same effect in this case (theoretically less value placed on the work of an author, but not practically). Also, this might be coincidence, but copyright has gotten extended at the same time as most authors have received less from publishing. All that said, I want society as a whole to be better, people to have more opportunities to grow, good ideas more of a chance to flourish. I think that overly strong copyright fights against that. And IME (ok, secondhand experience) that 99.9% of the profits added by strong copyright goes to the publishers, not the authors.
    - greenie_beans 2y ago
      yeah, everybody arguing in here like writers are making a living off their books
      - johnnyanmac 2y ago
        I'm 100% on board with giving publishers and huge boot and making sure their labor is properly compensated. Sadly these discussions here always tend to turn into "copyright as a concept is BS, I want to utilize knowledge immediately with no restraint". A reverse motte and Bailey, if you will. There's a perfectly objectionable issue that we can band together to solve, ignored in liue of the extreme argument that'd take decades in court to resolve.
- encomiast 2y ago
  Not sure this argument works unless you are willing to give away the other property on death like houses, stocks, farms, etc. Maybe 60 years is too long, but that doesn't seem to be your argument.
  - hysan 2y ago
    Genuine question since I don’t know much about inheritance. Don’t things like houses, stocks, etc get taxed in certain places? Whereas I don’t think copyright does? In a way, that is similar to having to give property away upon death (can’t pay the tax, forced to get rid of it).
    - lupire 2y ago
      Income is taxed, obviously. Copyright is taken away, originally after 14 years, now 70(?) years. After the death of the creator
      - xattt 2y ago
        It is amazing that modern medicine has extended authors’ afterlife by 56 years!
        geysersam 2y ago
        Originally it was 14 years plus another 14 years of the author survived that long. Copyright in the afterlife was not a thing
      - pyuser583 2y ago
        It was interesting from 2010 to 2015 when all of the people who died in WWII and Holocaust lost their copyrights. It started with Freud, and ended when Adolph Hitler and Anne Frank lost copyright protection on the same day.
      - ekianjo 2y ago
        its necessary to make sure dead authors have an incentive to keep on writing great books
TaylorAlexander 2y ago
[flagged]
- spankalee 2y ago
  Who's been jailed for singing Happy Birthday? How many people have been jailed for copyright violations at all? If you're arguing that copyright length should be shortened, I strongly agree. If you're arguing that we should eliminate copyright completely because we should only regulate things you would immediately throw people in jail for, I strongly disagree. As a society we need to be able to regulate some behavior that is not severe enough for jail time on its own, or for most standard offenses, even if the state ultimately has the power of incarceration to punish non-compliance. Just because moderately speeding shouldn't land you in jail, it doesn't mean that we shouldn't have speed limits.
  - garciasn 2y ago
    No one. Copyright infringement is not a criminal court matter; it is a civil one.
    - mlyle 2y ago
      There is such a thing as criminal copyright infringement, so it isn’t no one. Generally the conduct is pretty egregious for it to be a criminal rather than civil matter.
    - Wistar 2y ago
      “The jury convicted Dallman, Courson, Garcia, Jaurequi, and Huber of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement.” This was just today. Deadline: “Operators Of Jetflicks, An Illegal Streaming Service With A Catalog Larger Than Netflix, Prime Video And Hulu Put Together, Convicted By Federal Jury” https://deadline.com/2024/06/jetflicks-illegal-streaming-service-convicted-federal-jury-piracy-1235978930/ https://deadline.com/2024/06/jetflicks-illegal-streaming-ser...
      - 2y ago
rwasco 2y ago
[flagged]
jrm4 2y ago
This is a deeply unserious way to frame this; it presumes the unnatural (even if useful/positive) present state of copyright as a naturally occurring thing. It ain't. "Why should we lessen or diminish the legal right of authors to control how copies of their work are distributed; the way we've been doing it works well." is what you SHOULD have said. Doesn't sound as sexy, but here, the accuracy matters.
- spankalee 2y ago
  I didn't say the current system worked well, but neither was the parent post critiquing just the current system, but "purposeful restriction" in general. Accuracy matters.
  - encomiast 2y ago
    I'm curious about the argument that is framed with "it presumes the unnatural (even if useful/positive) present state of copyright as a naturally occurring thing." I don't think this should be discounted so quickly. Nothing in this domain — money, private property, laws, justice — are obviously naturally occurring things. One of the great traditions in the effort to understand how rights and value come to be is the creation of narratives that connect the rights to early natural states. We see this in Locke, Rousseau, Rawls, etc. You could just ask the question of whether the current state "works well", but then you are in the wheelhouse of Jeremy Bentham and other utilitarians. Fine, but so far these kinds of arguments don't lead to worlds many of us like.
    - jrm4 2y ago
      I submit that intellectual property is absolutely less natural than e.g. real or personal property. I haven't done a deep dive, but I'd strongly wager that if you did a sweep of traditions of property across times and cultures, you're going to find a LOT more uniformity over the idea of property rights over PHYSICAL THINGS like land and food (and probably money or other forms of exchange? maybe not) than you will IP.
hliyan 2y ago
I think a lot of the problems being discussed in sibling comments can be solved to an extent if we limit copyright to its original 14 years. That number was decided in a much, much slower age (1790). In today's world, 14 years should be ample time to monetise most creative work.
- throw10920 2y ago
  Yes, this is the correct solution - reduce copyright term. I don't know if I agree that 14 years is right, but I'm sure that pretty much everyone can agree that 1 year is too short, and 60 years is too long.
  - JoshTriplett 2y ago
    1 year is 1 year too long, but reducing to 14 years would at least be an improvement over the current effectively perpetual system..
    - spankalee 2y ago
      I just don't understand this take. Why should authors not be able to reap the economic benefits from their work? Someone write a novel and everyone else should be able to copy it? It just doesn't make sense to me. Why wouldn't this line of reasoning apply to physical property? Why can't I just go live in any house I want? Take any car I want?
      - hliyan 2y ago
        Because unlike physical property, new knowledge gets absorbed into the culture and language over time, and you cannot hold everyone who expresses it to ransom perpetually. If that were the case, consider how much of today's HN home page could be read without paying royalties. Another way to look at this: unlike physical property, what you pay for is the novelty. And that wears off.
        johnnyanmac 2y ago
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
account42 2y ago
The author author can always choose not to give their work away if they don't want to. The question is why should everyone else give up their right to free speech for the benefit of the author? That needs a convincing argument that the restrictions actually benefit everyone and not just the author.

PostOnce 2y ago

Dead authors can't choose to give away their works, they're dead. Yet someone still owns the rights 60 years later.

spankalee 2y ago
That says nothing about the living authors.
throwAGIway 2y ago
If an author sells the rights and does, should the buyer automatically lose what they bought? Sounds like that would severely decrease what authors can earn, especially older ones.
- kibwen 2y ago
  There's no reason that "selling copyrights" needs to a be a thing. If the author themself wants to profit from their work, sure, but once they die, that's it, and there's no excuse for it to not be in the public domain at that point.
  - encomiast 2y ago
    So the wife that supported the author can't profit off their assets? The author can't pass on this to children? Should we do the same thing for other property like land and money?
    - anigbrowl 2y ago
      This kind of hectoring discourse is aggressive and rude. You can do better. Authors that get paid can certainly leave the assets they received to their families. They could also transfer ownership of unpublished intangible assets. More than that sucks the general public into a quasi-contractual relationship with a posthumous person; I disclaim fiscal obligations of strangers toward ghosts.
      - encomiast 2y ago
        But it's not hectoring (and was not intended to be rude). Authors build things. Just like people who build companies, houses, inventions, etc. There are a lot of theories of how ownership happen, but many (at least in the US and Europe) come from some for of the labor theory of ownership. We own the things we put labor into and create. Unless you have a competing theory of ownership that explains why other assets can benefit the family of those who create things of value after death but not works of art, music, writing, etc., you haven't really made a cogent argument. Calling me rude is just an ad hominem argument, which we shouldn't entertain as serious.
        adgjlsfhk1 2y ago
        The big difference between copyright and propery is that me owning a table doesn't stop someone else from making a similar looking table. Copyright that lasted forever would mean that new adaptations of anything could never be made without licensing from the hedge fund that had bought up the original rights from 500 years ago.
        chii 2y ago
        > owning a table doesn't stop someone else from making a similar looking table. and copyright doesnt prevent you from writing a story about a boy wizard attending a school and fighting against a evil big bad. Nor does it prevent you from writing a story about a rag tag group of rebels fighting against an empire.
  - shagie 2y ago
    Lets change from "selling" to "assigning". Could you assign the copyrights to a corporation (that then doesn't die). Would that prevent them from going into the public domain? If I write some software and assign its copyright to the Apache Foundation or FSF or some other organization through a CLA, what happens to the license if I kick the bucket tomorrow? For that matter, what happens if I don't assign its copyright to some other organization... does all the GPL software that I write suddenly become public domain? If no, there is reason for it to remain under the GPL or Apache license so that it can continue on in the spirit of the license it was created under (which copyright enforces) ... then there is equal reason for the works of an author or photographer or singer or song writer to also remain under copyright for some duration. https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/pragmatic.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/pragmatic.en.html > My work on free software is motivated by an idealistic goal: spreading freedom and cooperation. I want to encourage free software to spread, replacing proprietary software that forbids cooperation, and thus make our society better. > That's the basic reason why the GNU General Public License is written the way it is—as a copyleft. All code added to a GPL-covered program must be free software, even if it is put in a separate file. I make my code available for use in free software, and not for use in proprietary software, in order to encourage other people who write software to make it free as well. I figure that since proprietary software developers use copyright to stop us from sharing, we cooperators can use copyright to give other cooperators an advantage of their own: they can use our code. If the GPLed project lost all of its teeth upon the untimely death of a contributor, would that be a bad thing?
    - cookiengineer 2y ago
      What do you think was the real reason for all the remakes of Disney movies that happened the last decade? Copyright terms were running out. Also, by your logic, every contributor of a project, contemporary or previously, must die in order for the "GPL losing its teeth".
      - shagie 2y ago
        And there is a different copyright (rather than on the text or video production) - the copyright protection for fictional characters. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_protection_for_fictional_characters https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_protection_for_ficti... -- For Linux, the "every contributor" might be true. For a lot of other projects, they've got a CLA in place. https://www.mongodb.com/legal/contributor-agreement https://www.mongodb.com/legal/contributor-agreement (a) Assignment. By submitting a Contribution, you assign to MongoDB all right, title and interest in any copyright you have in the Contribution, and you waive any rights, including any moral rights, database rights, etc., that may affect our ownership of the copyright in the Contribution. When does MongoDB die? Jokes aside, whatever the answer is, as long as it is longer than any contributor, that's an out. Consider also the "I don't know who you cookiengineer are, therefore I assert that you're dead and the copyright on your previous comment has expired and I'll just slurp this up into an LLM training model." https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/302 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/302 (c) Anonymous Works, Pseudonymous Works, and Works Made for Hire.— In the case of an anonymous work, a pseudonymous work, or a work made for hire, the copyright endures for a term of 95 years from the year of its first publication, or a term of 120 years from the year of its creation, whichever expires first. If, before the end of such term, the identity of one or more of the authors of an anonymous or pseudonymous work is revealed in the records of a registration made for that work under subsections (a) or (d) of section 408, or in the records provided by this subsection, the copyright in the work endures for the term specified by subsection (a) or (b), based on the life of the author or authors whose identity has been revealed. ... (e) Presumption as to Author’s Death.— After a period of 95 years from the year of first publication of a work, or a period of 120 years from the year of its creation, whichever expires first, any person who obtains from the Copyright Office a certified report that the records provided by subsection (d) disclose nothing to indicate that the author of the work is living, or died less than 70 years before, is entitled to the benefits of a presumption that the author has been dead for at least 70 years. Reliance in good faith upon this presumption shall be a complete defense to any action for infringement under this title. It is certainly reasonable to argue that 95-120 years from its publication is too long, but the copyright your comments (and other works) do not require me to dox you to determine if they're expired or not. Having copyright on anonymous or psuedoanonymous or being able to assign copyright to another entity are incompatible with copyright expiring upon the death of the author. Resetting that number back to 50 years as covered by the Berne Convention would be a good thing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Convention#Term_of_protection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Convention#Term_of_prote... Having it be less than 50 years implies that the United States would be leaving the Berne Convention (signed by 181 countries) and that would put the United States in very small group of countries that do not recognize any intellectual property laws https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_parties_to_international_copyright_agreements#Table_of_parties https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_parties_to_internation... Trying to change the copyright to a very short period implies that the United States would be leaving the Berne Convention and TRIPS and the WTO and would go about trying to renegotiate those treaties with about 200 countries all over again (and getting those treaties signed by congress)
  - BHSPitMonkey 2y ago
    > If the author themself wants to profit from their work, sure, but once they die, that's it, and there's no excuse for it to not be in the public domain at that point. So if Disney wants to make a TV show out of your novel series and you turn them down, I suppose they now have an alternative way of making the problem disappear and getting the outcome they wanted... Joking aside, this idea really seems to create a perverse incentive to make authors die sooner.
- dabraham1248 2y ago
  > Sounds like that would severely decrease what authors can earn, especially older ones. I mean, I know a bunch of authors. All of them wrote because they needed to write (even the textbook authors). And almost none of them earned much of anything from it (even the textbook authors). One English prof told me that he received almost enough for his morning coffee for about three years. Then he didn't. And he drank just plain coffee. "The problem for most artists isn't piracy, it's obscurity." "Less copyright" != "piracy", but I think it has the same effect in this case (theoretically less value placed on the work of an author, but not practically). Also, this might be coincidence, but copyright has gotten extended at the same time as most authors have received less from publishing. All that said, I want society as a whole to be better, people to have more opportunities to grow, good ideas more of a chance to flourish. I think that overly strong copyright fights against that. And IME (ok, secondhand experience) that 99.9% of the profits added by strong copyright goes to the publishers, not the authors.
  - greenie_beans 2y ago
    yeah, everybody arguing in here like writers are making a living off their books
    - johnnyanmac 2y ago
      I'm 100% on board with giving publishers and huge boot and making sure their labor is properly compensated. Sadly these discussions here always tend to turn into "copyright as a concept is BS, I want to utilize knowledge immediately with no restraint". A reverse motte and Bailey, if you will. There's a perfectly objectionable issue that we can band together to solve, ignored in liue of the extreme argument that'd take decades in court to resolve.
encomiast 2y ago
Not sure this argument works unless you are willing to give away the other property on death like houses, stocks, farms, etc. Maybe 60 years is too long, but that doesn't seem to be your argument.
- hysan 2y ago
  Genuine question since I don’t know much about inheritance. Don’t things like houses, stocks, etc get taxed in certain places? Whereas I don’t think copyright does? In a way, that is similar to having to give property away upon death (can’t pay the tax, forced to get rid of it).
  - lupire 2y ago
    Income is taxed, obviously. Copyright is taken away, originally after 14 years, now 70(?) years. After the death of the creator
    - xattt 2y ago
      It is amazing that modern medicine has extended authors’ afterlife by 56 years!
      - geysersam 2y ago
        Originally it was 14 years plus another 14 years of the author survived that long. Copyright in the afterlife was not a thing
    - pyuser583 2y ago
      It was interesting from 2010 to 2015 when all of the people who died in WWII and Holocaust lost their copyrights. It started with Freud, and ended when Adolph Hitler and Anne Frank lost copyright protection on the same day.
    - ekianjo 2y ago
      its necessary to make sure dead authors have an incentive to keep on writing great books

TaylorAlexander 2y ago

[flagged]

spankalee 2y ago
Who's been jailed for singing Happy Birthday? How many people have been jailed for copyright violations at all? If you're arguing that copyright length should be shortened, I strongly agree. If you're arguing that we should eliminate copyright completely because we should only regulate things you would immediately throw people in jail for, I strongly disagree. As a society we need to be able to regulate some behavior that is not severe enough for jail time on its own, or for most standard offenses, even if the state ultimately has the power of incarceration to punish non-compliance. Just because moderately speeding shouldn't land you in jail, it doesn't mean that we shouldn't have speed limits.
- garciasn 2y ago
  No one. Copyright infringement is not a criminal court matter; it is a civil one.
  - mlyle 2y ago
    There is such a thing as criminal copyright infringement, so it isn’t no one. Generally the conduct is pretty egregious for it to be a criminal rather than civil matter.
  - Wistar 2y ago
    “The jury convicted Dallman, Courson, Garcia, Jaurequi, and Huber of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement.” This was just today. Deadline: “Operators Of Jetflicks, An Illegal Streaming Service With A Catalog Larger Than Netflix, Prime Video And Hulu Put Together, Convicted By Federal Jury” https://deadline.com/2024/06/jetflicks-illegal-streaming-service-convicted-federal-jury-piracy-1235978930/ https://deadline.com/2024/06/jetflicks-illegal-streaming-ser...
    - 2y ago

rwasco 2y ago

[flagged]

jrm4 2y ago

This is a deeply unserious way to frame this; it presumes the unnatural (even if useful/positive) present state of copyright as a naturally occurring thing. It ain't. "Why should we lessen or diminish the legal right of authors to control how copies of their work are distributed; the way we've been doing it works well." is what you SHOULD have said. Doesn't sound as sexy, but here, the accuracy matters.

spankalee 2y ago
I didn't say the current system worked well, but neither was the parent post critiquing just the current system, but "purposeful restriction" in general. Accuracy matters.
- encomiast 2y ago
  I'm curious about the argument that is framed with "it presumes the unnatural (even if useful/positive) present state of copyright as a naturally occurring thing." I don't think this should be discounted so quickly. Nothing in this domain — money, private property, laws, justice — are obviously naturally occurring things. One of the great traditions in the effort to understand how rights and value come to be is the creation of narratives that connect the rights to early natural states. We see this in Locke, Rousseau, Rawls, etc. You could just ask the question of whether the current state "works well", but then you are in the wheelhouse of Jeremy Bentham and other utilitarians. Fine, but so far these kinds of arguments don't lead to worlds many of us like.
  - jrm4 2y ago
    I submit that intellectual property is absolutely less natural than e.g. real or personal property. I haven't done a deep dive, but I'd strongly wager that if you did a sweep of traditions of property across times and cultures, you're going to find a LOT more uniformity over the idea of property rights over PHYSICAL THINGS like land and food (and probably money or other forms of exchange? maybe not) than you will IP.

hliyan 2y ago

I think a lot of the problems being discussed in sibling comments can be solved to an extent if we limit copyright to its original 14 years. That number was decided in a much, much slower age (1790). In today's world, 14 years should be ample time to monetise most creative work.

throw10920 2y ago
Yes, this is the correct solution - reduce copyright term. I don't know if I agree that 14 years is right, but I'm sure that pretty much everyone can agree that 1 year is too short, and 60 years is too long.
- JoshTriplett 2y ago
  1 year is 1 year too long, but reducing to 14 years would at least be an improvement over the current effectively perpetual system..
  - spankalee 2y ago
    I just don't understand this take. Why should authors not be able to reap the economic benefits from their work? Someone write a novel and everyone else should be able to copy it? It just doesn't make sense to me. Why wouldn't this line of reasoning apply to physical property? Why can't I just go live in any house I want? Take any car I want?
    - hliyan 2y ago
      Because unlike physical property, new knowledge gets absorbed into the culture and language over time, and you cannot hold everyone who expresses it to ransom perpetually. If that were the case, consider how much of today's HN home page could be read without paying royalties. Another way to look at this: unlike physical property, what you pay for is the novelty. And that wears off.
      - johnnyanmac 2y ago

deleted 2y ago

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account42 2y ago

The author author can always choose not to give their work away if they don't want to. The question is why should everyone else give up their right to free speech for the benefit of the author? That needs a convincing argument that the restrictions actually benefit everyone and not just the author.