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I literally said right in my comment that you replied to that I thought copyright terms were too long. But if you're going to "throw the baby out with the bathw

I literally said right in my comment that you replied to that I thought copyright terms were too long. But if you're going to "throw the baby out with the bathwater" and insist copyright shouldn't exist, you should at least be honest about what the consequences of that would be, and again I never see that sort of honest assessment from the "knowledge should be free" crowd. Heck, even arguing about overly-long copyrights seems disingenuous in this case. This wasn't an article about Mickey Mouse. I wasn't previously familiar with Libgen, but given its focus, I would assume most of the pirated material has living authors.

matheusmoreira 2y ago
I am being honest with the consequences. It is desirable that we should have a supply of good books; we cannot have such a supply unless men of letters are liberally remunerated: and the least objectionable way of remunerating them is by means of copyright. You cannot depend for literary instruction and amusement on the leisure of men occupied in the pursuits of active life. Such men may occasionally produce compositions of great merit. But you must not look to such men for works which require deep meditation and long research. Works of that kind you can expect only from persons who make literature the business of their lives. Men who make authorship the business of their lives. We shall have less of them. I accept these consequences. Let it be. It's the future they chose. I do have one hope though. Later in the text, he expresses a rather low opinion of patronage. And he isn't wrong: patronage by governments, churches and moneyed elites obviously distorted the creativity of authors and that is not at all desirable. That's why copyright is advanced as the least bad solution. However, modern technology has changed patronage. It's now possible for wide audiences to subsidize the work of their favorite creators. It does not require artificial scarcity. They are rewarded for the act of creating, not the final product. As far as I'm concerned, this is the only way forward. Because enforcing copyright in the 21st century will require tyranny the likes of which should give pause to everyone who posts on Hacker News. It will literally destroy computing freedom as we know it today. And that's a consequence I don't accept. I'd sooner see creators find another job.
idunnoman1222 2y ago
Well, since you don’t know anything, let me tell you we’ve been able to get any book we’ve wanted for the last 15 years and the sky hasn’t fallen when I want to support an author, I buy their book, this as a sort of patronage

matheusmoreira 2y ago

I am being honest with the consequences. It is desirable that we should have a supply of good books; we cannot have such a supply unless men of letters are liberally remunerated: and the least objectionable way of remunerating them is by means of copyright. You cannot depend for literary instruction and amusement on the leisure of men occupied in the pursuits of active life. Such men may occasionally produce compositions of great merit. But you must not look to such men for works which require deep meditation and long research. Works of that kind you can expect only from persons who make literature the business of their lives. Men who make authorship the business of their lives. We shall have less of them. I accept these consequences. Let it be. It's the future they chose. I do have one hope though. Later in the text, he expresses a rather low opinion of patronage. And he isn't wrong: patronage by governments, churches and moneyed elites obviously distorted the creativity of authors and that is not at all desirable. That's why copyright is advanced as the least bad solution. However, modern technology has changed patronage. It's now possible for wide audiences to subsidize the work of their favorite creators. It does not require artificial scarcity. They are rewarded for the act of creating, not the final product. As far as I'm concerned, this is the only way forward. Because enforcing copyright in the 21st century will require tyranny the likes of which should give pause to everyone who posts on Hacker News. It will literally destroy computing freedom as we know it today. And that's a consequence I don't accept. I'd sooner see creators find another job.

idunnoman1222 2y ago

Well, since you don’t know anything, let me tell you we’ve been able to get any book we’ve wanted for the last 15 years and the sky hasn’t fallen when I want to support an author, I buy their book, this as a sort of patronage