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This is all true, and in a vacuum I agree with it. There's a pretty core problem with these kinds of assertions, though: people have to make rent. Never have I

This is all true, and in a vacuum I agree with it. There's a pretty core problem with these kinds of assertions, though: people have to make rent. Never have I seen a substantiative, pass-the-sniff-test argument for how to make practical this system when your authors and your artists need to eat in a system of modern capital. So I'm asking genuinely: what's your plan? What's the A to B if you could pass a law tomorrow?

uhoh-itsmaciek 2y ago
Copyright is not optimized for making sure artists and authors get enough to eat. It's optimized for people with a lot of money to make even more money by exploiting artists and authors. I doubt there's a simple answer (I certainly don't have one), but the current system is not exactly a creators' utopia.
Qwertious 2y ago
Not the person you responded to, but: >So I'm asking genuinely: what's your plan? What's the A to B if you could pass a law tomorrow? Patreon (or liberapay etc). Take a look at youtube: so many creators are actively saying "youtube doesn't pay the bills, if you like us then please support us on Patreon". Patreon works. Some of the time, at least - just like copyright. Also crowdsourcing (e.g. Kickstarter), which worked out well for games like FTL and Kingdom Come: Deliverance. Although, I personally don't believe copyright should be abolished - it just needs some amendments. It needs a duration amendment - not a flat duration (fast-fashion doesn't need even 5 years of copyright, but aerospace software regularly needs several decades just to break profitable), but either some duration-mechanism or a simple discrimination by industry. Also, I think any sort of functional copyright (e.g. software copyright) ought to have an incentive or requirement to publish the functional bits - for instance, router firmware ought to require the source code in escrow (to be published once copyright duration expires) for any legal protections against reverse-engineering to be mounted. Unpublished source code is a trade secret, and should be treated as such. Also, these discussions don't seem to mention fanfiction, which demonstrates plenty of people write good works without being professionally paid and without the protection of copyright.
- davrosthedalek 2y ago
  How many subscribers on patreon are there because the creators provides pay-walled extra content? How many would remain if that pay-walled content would be mirrored directly by youtube or on youtube? Crowdsourcing might work better, but how many would donate to a game where, instead of getting it cheaper as a kickstarter supporter, they could get free after it is released?
  - Qwertious 2y ago
    I completely forgot about Patreon's paywalled content. Plenty of channels don't have any, though, so I don't think it's that important.
JoshTriplett 2y ago
> What's the A to B if you could pass a law tomorrow? Top priority: UBI, together with a world in which there's so much surplus productivity that things can survive and thrive without having "how does this make huge amounts of money" as its top priority to optimize for. Apart from that: Conventions/concerts/festivals (tickets to a unique live event with a crowd of other fans), merchandise (pay for a physical object), patronage (pay for the ongoing creation of a thing), crowdfunding/Kickstarter (pay for a thing to come into existence that doesn't exist yet), brand/quality preference (many people prefer to support the original even if copies can be made), commissions (pay for unique work to be created for you), something akin to "venture funding", and the general premise that if a work spawns ten thousand spinoffs and a couple of them are incredible hits they're likely to direct some portion of their success back towards the work they build upon if that's generally looked upon favorably. People have an incredible desire both to create and to enjoy the creations of others, and that's not going to stop. It is very likely that the concept of the $1B movie would disappear, and in trade we'd get the creation of far far more works.
- eropple 2y ago
  Yeah, this is what I was expecting. I have no love for Disney et al but I think that this is dire (aside from UBI, which would be great but is fictional without a large-scale shift in American culture). "Everybody else gets paid for the work they do; you get paid for things around the work you do, if you're lucky" is a way to expect creatives to live that, to put a point on it, always ends up being "for thee, but not for me". It's bad enough today--I think you described something worse.
  - JoshTriplett 2y ago
    The current model is "most people get paid for the work they do, but you get paid for people copying work you've already done", which already seems asymmetric. This would change the model to "people get paid for the work they do, and not paid again for copying work they've already done".
    - eropple 2y ago
Kim_Bruning 2y ago
My own business model is to create Things That Don't Exist Yet. This (typically bespoke work) is actually the majority of work in any era I think. For me, copyright doesn't do much, it mostly gets in the way. If you pass the law tomorrow -all else being equal- my profits would stay equal or go up somewhat.

uhoh-itsmaciek 2y ago

Copyright is not optimized for making sure artists and authors get enough to eat. It's optimized for people with a lot of money to make even more money by exploiting artists and authors. I doubt there's a simple answer (I certainly don't have one), but the current system is not exactly a creators' utopia.

Qwertious 2y ago

Not the person you responded to, but: >So I'm asking genuinely: what's your plan? What's the A to B if you could pass a law tomorrow? Patreon (or liberapay etc). Take a look at youtube: so many creators are actively saying "youtube doesn't pay the bills, if you like us then please support us on Patreon". Patreon works. Some of the time, at least - just like copyright. Also crowdsourcing (e.g. Kickstarter), which worked out well for games like FTL and Kingdom Come: Deliverance. Although, I personally don't believe copyright should be abolished - it just needs some amendments. It needs a duration amendment - not a flat duration (fast-fashion doesn't need even 5 years of copyright, but aerospace software regularly needs several decades just to break profitable), but either some duration-mechanism or a simple discrimination by industry. Also, I think any sort of functional copyright (e.g. software copyright) ought to have an incentive or requirement to publish the functional bits - for instance, router firmware ought to require the source code in escrow (to be published once copyright duration expires) for any legal protections against reverse-engineering to be mounted. Unpublished source code is a trade secret, and should be treated as such. Also, these discussions don't seem to mention fanfiction, which demonstrates plenty of people write good works without being professionally paid and without the protection of copyright.

davrosthedalek 2y ago
How many subscribers on patreon are there because the creators provides pay-walled extra content? How many would remain if that pay-walled content would be mirrored directly by youtube or on youtube? Crowdsourcing might work better, but how many would donate to a game where, instead of getting it cheaper as a kickstarter supporter, they could get free after it is released?
- Qwertious 2y ago
  I completely forgot about Patreon's paywalled content. Plenty of channels don't have any, though, so I don't think it's that important.

JoshTriplett 2y ago

> What's the A to B if you could pass a law tomorrow? Top priority: UBI, together with a world in which there's so much surplus productivity that things can survive and thrive without having "how does this make huge amounts of money" as its top priority to optimize for. Apart from that: Conventions/concerts/festivals (tickets to a unique live event with a crowd of other fans), merchandise (pay for a physical object), patronage (pay for the ongoing creation of a thing), crowdfunding/Kickstarter (pay for a thing to come into existence that doesn't exist yet), brand/quality preference (many people prefer to support the original even if copies can be made), commissions (pay for unique work to be created for you), something akin to "venture funding", and the general premise that if a work spawns ten thousand spinoffs and a couple of them are incredible hits they're likely to direct some portion of their success back towards the work they build upon if that's generally looked upon favorably. People have an incredible desire both to create and to enjoy the creations of others, and that's not going to stop. It is very likely that the concept of the $1B movie would disappear, and in trade we'd get the creation of far far more works.

eropple 2y ago
Yeah, this is what I was expecting. I have no love for Disney et al but I think that this is dire (aside from UBI, which would be great but is fictional without a large-scale shift in American culture). "Everybody else gets paid for the work they do; you get paid for things around the work you do, if you're lucky" is a way to expect creatives to live that, to put a point on it, always ends up being "for thee, but not for me". It's bad enough today--I think you described something worse.
- JoshTriplett 2y ago
  The current model is "most people get paid for the work they do, but you get paid for people copying work you've already done", which already seems asymmetric. This would change the model to "people get paid for the work they do, and not paid again for copying work they've already done".
  - eropple 2y ago

Kim_Bruning 2y ago

My own business model is to create Things That Don't Exist Yet. This (typically bespoke work) is actually the majority of work in any era I think. For me, copyright doesn't do much, it mostly gets in the way. If you pass the law tomorrow -all else being equal- my profits would stay equal or go up somewhat.