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>preservationism shouldn't care about licensing and legal nonsense. If it is reasonable that someone needs to preserve something because it has been abandoned,

>preservationism shouldn't care about licensing and legal nonsense. If it is reasonable that someone needs to preserve something because it has been abandoned, then the thing should automatically be in the public domain. If you are not actively using IP for a reasonable amount of time, any patents, trademarks, copyrights, etc should be permanently expired. This fixes problems with patent trolls too: you effectively would not be able to own a patent unless you were using it in your business.

VonGuard 2y ago
Great idea except it won't make anyone money. Therefore it will never happen. Copyright law in America is not based on good ideas, reasonability, or even preservation. They are based on profit. Your idea is great, but we do not live in a world where good ideas matter at all. Only money matters here, and this idea will not make anyone money.
- jart 2y ago
  It's not a great idea, because law and policy are designed to privilege makers rather than takers. It's a subversive degenerate kind of morality to argue that things belong to the people who desire to consume them.
  - FactKnower69 2y ago
    Damn, I wonder what book you read to make you so smart?
    - pxc 2y ago
      Justine is an impressive hacker, several of whose projects have made their way to the front page of this site before. She's plenty smart and that's plain to see. Calling her stupid isn't a good way to show her (or anyone) that she's wrong about this.
  - pxc 2y ago
    The copyright clause of the US constitution, at least, is explicit that the artifice of temporary monopoly for copyright holders exists for the benefit of society as a whole, not (supposedly) for the rightsholders themselves. The benefit for rightsholders (who are only sometimes the 'makers' anyway) is merely instrumental. It's the notion that IP is about protecting some kind of natural right that is a perversion, both historically (evinced in such language as the copyright clause) and ethically (I assert).
    - jart 2y ago
      I agree and privilege is one of the ways you solve that. Like the privilege of being less bound to engage in survival and political struggles. Evolution produced a world where if you want something, you have to take it. Makers aren't good at taking things because they're too busy making. The natural order is that makers would be marked for deletion, which is how it was for million of years before economies came into being that could support them. Since we know that life is good for everyone when stuff gets made, society is better off as a whole when it goes out of its way to support its makers, since giving makers more means they'll make more. OTOH if you lift up takers they'll just use it to take more. The greatest most successful takers all know this, which is why many of them become philanthropists. Since there's not much point being a taker if there's nothing left to take. Once you've taken everything, the only way you can take more is by getting makers to make more. The supreme takers also set up things like governments, which claim dominion over all the makers and punish all the little takers who try to take from them. The little takers of course weep and wail about why the makers get a special set of rules, but that's where they get it wrong, because rather than being angry at the makers, the little takers should be modeling themselves after the supreme takers. In modernity, the set of rules that the supreme takers put in place hundreds of years ago to protect the makers included things like intellectual property. However those rules are just that, arbitrary rules, and they don't cover up the underlying reality of what they sought to accomplish, which is privilege. If those rules don't work anymore, then the system will simply do something else to achieve its goals, which include elevating the universe to a higher state of existence and creating a better life for everyone.
      - 2y ago
Sakos 2y ago
> If it is reasonable that someone needs to preserve something because it has been abandoned, then the thing should automatically be in the public domain. Yeah, you go ahead and get that through every Western government. We'll fix the rest.
- account42 2y ago
  Civil disobedience is a good start.
account42 2y ago
Except "once it has been abandoned" is often too late because the source code/artwork/whatever has been lost by then. We need to make sure that things can be and will be archived before that.

VonGuard 2y ago

Great idea except it won't make anyone money. Therefore it will never happen. Copyright law in America is not based on good ideas, reasonability, or even preservation. They are based on profit. Your idea is great, but we do not live in a world where good ideas matter at all. Only money matters here, and this idea will not make anyone money.

jart 2y ago
It's not a great idea, because law and policy are designed to privilege makers rather than takers. It's a subversive degenerate kind of morality to argue that things belong to the people who desire to consume them.
- FactKnower69 2y ago
  Damn, I wonder what book you read to make you so smart?
  - pxc 2y ago
    Justine is an impressive hacker, several of whose projects have made their way to the front page of this site before. She's plenty smart and that's plain to see. Calling her stupid isn't a good way to show her (or anyone) that she's wrong about this.
- pxc 2y ago
  The copyright clause of the US constitution, at least, is explicit that the artifice of temporary monopoly for copyright holders exists for the benefit of society as a whole, not (supposedly) for the rightsholders themselves. The benefit for rightsholders (who are only sometimes the 'makers' anyway) is merely instrumental. It's the notion that IP is about protecting some kind of natural right that is a perversion, both historically (evinced in such language as the copyright clause) and ethically (I assert).
  - jart 2y ago
    I agree and privilege is one of the ways you solve that. Like the privilege of being less bound to engage in survival and political struggles. Evolution produced a world where if you want something, you have to take it. Makers aren't good at taking things because they're too busy making. The natural order is that makers would be marked for deletion, which is how it was for million of years before economies came into being that could support them. Since we know that life is good for everyone when stuff gets made, society is better off as a whole when it goes out of its way to support its makers, since giving makers more means they'll make more. OTOH if you lift up takers they'll just use it to take more. The greatest most successful takers all know this, which is why many of them become philanthropists. Since there's not much point being a taker if there's nothing left to take. Once you've taken everything, the only way you can take more is by getting makers to make more. The supreme takers also set up things like governments, which claim dominion over all the makers and punish all the little takers who try to take from them. The little takers of course weep and wail about why the makers get a special set of rules, but that's where they get it wrong, because rather than being angry at the makers, the little takers should be modeling themselves after the supreme takers. In modernity, the set of rules that the supreme takers put in place hundreds of years ago to protect the makers included things like intellectual property. However those rules are just that, arbitrary rules, and they don't cover up the underlying reality of what they sought to accomplish, which is privilege. If those rules don't work anymore, then the system will simply do something else to achieve its goals, which include elevating the universe to a higher state of existence and creating a better life for everyone.
    - 2y ago

Sakos 2y ago

> If it is reasonable that someone needs to preserve something because it has been abandoned, then the thing should automatically be in the public domain. Yeah, you go ahead and get that through every Western government. We'll fix the rest.

account42 2y ago
Civil disobedience is a good start.

account42 2y ago

Except "once it has been abandoned" is often too late because the source code/artwork/whatever has been lost by then. We need to make sure that things can be and will be archived before that.