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I strongly urge people to read Thomas Babington Macaulay's speeches on copyright, its aims, terms, and hazards. Very well reasoned and explained. In particular

I strongly urge people to read Thomas Babington Macaulay's speeches on copyright, its aims, terms, and hazards. Very well reasoned and explained. In particular, people often cited the case of authors who had died leaving a family in destitution, and claimed that copyright extension would be a fair way of preventing this, but in most cases the remaining family had never held the copyright; the author had initally sold the reproduction rights to a publisher who had then sat on the work without publishing it. The author, driven into penury, was then induced to sell the copyright to the publisher outright for a pittance. So in such cases a copyright extension only benefited the publisher, and indeed increased their incentive to extort the copyright.

bbor 2y ago
I’m a huge IP hater and am sure that happens, but to be fair, letting copyright extend past death also increases the amount the author can sell it for in the first place.
- ttyprintk 2y ago
  The current workaround is to attribute footnotes to your beneficiaries, or quote them in the dedication. Those become derivative works subject to the lifetime of your beneficiary.
kshri24 2y ago
> Thomas Babington Macaulay The one who got Hindu Sanskrit books translated in a horrible manner and then claimed: "I have no knowledge of either Sanskrit or Arabic. But I have done what I could to form a correct estimate of their value. I have read translations of the most celebrated Arabic and Sanskrit works. I have conversed both here and at home with men distinguished by their proficiency in the Eastern tongues. I am quite ready to take the Oriental learning at the valuation of the Orientalists themselves. I have never found one among them who could deny that a single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia." This chap will educate us on copyright? No thanks!
- demosthanos 2y ago
  This is the corollary of the fallacy of appeal to authority: the rejection of an argument on the grounds that the speaker was horribly wrong on an unrelated or very loosely related topic. If you reject Macaulay on copyright because he was an imperialist, you can use the exact same logic to reject the arguments of essentially every person who ever lived. Very few humans who ever wrote anything important will perfectly align with your morality, and most will be horribly misaligned in at least one way.
  - sigbottle 2y ago
    I do think that context is still important in general, but probably only if you're doing deep research into Macaulay (or the specific target in mind). Treating everything in a vacuum isn't great either. Plenty of philosophical works for example, you really have to read in the time period and in the context of the author's life. I find an acceptable tradeoff for now is, if I want to do deep research for myself, opening myself up to this sort of mushy subjective stuff is actually really important for making deep, objectively correct observations. Especially if the goal is to steelman, not strawman, the opponent's argument. Otherwise, this kind of worst-case analysis thinking is fine. It's a logically sound conclusion, it's just kind of unsatisfying because we can't make stronger claims. How do we decide when to make this tradeoff and for what things? Uhh.... idk. For me though, there has been value in using both kinds of thinking before though. On a public forum, worst-case analysis is probably fine because the discussion ain't that deep. Also probably 90% of comments are made within the intention of a "gotcha" and not actually for discussion. Basically, I totally agree with this, it's just that I've seen one too many online forums devolve into thought-terminating cliches using "rationality" as the basis. Here, I think it's totally justified to take this line... I instinctively had the same reaction upon reading GP's post (but then you could argue it's tone policing... and ahh we're off to the good ol' internet debate race spiral)
  - kshri24 2y ago
    > If you reject Macaulay on copyright because he was an imperialist On the contrary I would argue that this is precisely why you SHOULD NOT take his opinion on copyright. One of the main outcomes of imperialism/colonization is denigrating/destroying/appropriating works of art, literature with the primary goal of subjugation, subversion and thereupon replacement of native culture/traditions/institutions. I did not quote the other half of his nauseating take but I'll post it nevertheless: "[...] And I certainly never met with any Orientalist who ventured to maintain that the Arabic and Sanscrit poetry could be compared to that of the great European nations. But when we pass from works of imagination to works in which facts are recorded, and general principles investigated, the superiority of the Europeans becomes absolutely immeasurable. It is, I believe, no exaggeration to say, that all the historical information which has been collected from all the books written in the Sanscrit language is less valuable than what may be found in the most paltry abridgments used at preparatory schools in England. In every branch of physical or moral philosophy, the relative position of the two nations is nearly the same."
golergka 2y ago
> in most cases the remaining family had never held the copyright; the author had initally sold the reproduction rights to a publisher He was able to sell it because it is something valuable, exactly because of the copyright protections. Regardless of whether author sells the rights or not, he and his family would equally be better off with copyright.
- grayhatter 2y ago
  Why does this argument remind me so much of those of slavery apologist arguments? copyright as written serves the interests of publishers who don't create valuable works more than the creators of the work...
arresin 2y ago
This one example does not make stealing acceptable which is what you’re implying.
- grayhatter 2y ago
  Copyright infringement isn't stealing. I will die on this hill! also, I don't think that implication is required, but lets pretend the implication is the only reasonable conclusion one could draw. Maybe it does make it acceptable? If the vast majority of copyright enforcement isn't to protect creators of valuable work, but only serves to enrich those who take advantage of those creators. Then isn't it not just reasonable or acceptable, but ethically required for someone to do everything they can to dismantle the systems they're abusing against the interests of those who are actually improving the world with their creations?
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]

bbor 2y ago

I’m a huge IP hater and am sure that happens, but to be fair, letting copyright extend past death also increases the amount the author can sell it for in the first place.

ttyprintk 2y ago
The current workaround is to attribute footnotes to your beneficiaries, or quote them in the dedication. Those become derivative works subject to the lifetime of your beneficiary.

kshri24 2y ago

> Thomas Babington Macaulay The one who got Hindu Sanskrit books translated in a horrible manner and then claimed: "I have no knowledge of either Sanskrit or Arabic. But I have done what I could to form a correct estimate of their value. I have read translations of the most celebrated Arabic and Sanskrit works. I have conversed both here and at home with men distinguished by their proficiency in the Eastern tongues. I am quite ready to take the Oriental learning at the valuation of the Orientalists themselves. I have never found one among them who could deny that a single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia." This chap will educate us on copyright? No thanks!

demosthanos 2y ago
This is the corollary of the fallacy of appeal to authority: the rejection of an argument on the grounds that the speaker was horribly wrong on an unrelated or very loosely related topic. If you reject Macaulay on copyright because he was an imperialist, you can use the exact same logic to reject the arguments of essentially every person who ever lived. Very few humans who ever wrote anything important will perfectly align with your morality, and most will be horribly misaligned in at least one way.
- sigbottle 2y ago
  I do think that context is still important in general, but probably only if you're doing deep research into Macaulay (or the specific target in mind). Treating everything in a vacuum isn't great either. Plenty of philosophical works for example, you really have to read in the time period and in the context of the author's life. I find an acceptable tradeoff for now is, if I want to do deep research for myself, opening myself up to this sort of mushy subjective stuff is actually really important for making deep, objectively correct observations. Especially if the goal is to steelman, not strawman, the opponent's argument. Otherwise, this kind of worst-case analysis thinking is fine. It's a logically sound conclusion, it's just kind of unsatisfying because we can't make stronger claims. How do we decide when to make this tradeoff and for what things? Uhh.... idk. For me though, there has been value in using both kinds of thinking before though. On a public forum, worst-case analysis is probably fine because the discussion ain't that deep. Also probably 90% of comments are made within the intention of a "gotcha" and not actually for discussion. Basically, I totally agree with this, it's just that I've seen one too many online forums devolve into thought-terminating cliches using "rationality" as the basis. Here, I think it's totally justified to take this line... I instinctively had the same reaction upon reading GP's post (but then you could argue it's tone policing... and ahh we're off to the good ol' internet debate race spiral)
- kshri24 2y ago
  > If you reject Macaulay on copyright because he was an imperialist On the contrary I would argue that this is precisely why you SHOULD NOT take his opinion on copyright. One of the main outcomes of imperialism/colonization is denigrating/destroying/appropriating works of art, literature with the primary goal of subjugation, subversion and thereupon replacement of native culture/traditions/institutions. I did not quote the other half of his nauseating take but I'll post it nevertheless: "[...] And I certainly never met with any Orientalist who ventured to maintain that the Arabic and Sanscrit poetry could be compared to that of the great European nations. But when we pass from works of imagination to works in which facts are recorded, and general principles investigated, the superiority of the Europeans becomes absolutely immeasurable. It is, I believe, no exaggeration to say, that all the historical information which has been collected from all the books written in the Sanscrit language is less valuable than what may be found in the most paltry abridgments used at preparatory schools in England. In every branch of physical or moral philosophy, the relative position of the two nations is nearly the same."

golergka 2y ago

> in most cases the remaining family had never held the copyright; the author had initally sold the reproduction rights to a publisher He was able to sell it because it is something valuable, exactly because of the copyright protections. Regardless of whether author sells the rights or not, he and his family would equally be better off with copyright.

grayhatter 2y ago
Why does this argument remind me so much of those of slavery apologist arguments? copyright as written serves the interests of publishers who don't create valuable works more than the creators of the work...

arresin 2y ago

This one example does not make stealing acceptable which is what you’re implying.

grayhatter 2y ago
Copyright infringement isn't stealing. I will die on this hill! also, I don't think that implication is required, but lets pretend the implication is the only reasonable conclusion one could draw. Maybe it does make it acceptable? If the vast majority of copyright enforcement isn't to protect creators of valuable work, but only serves to enrich those who take advantage of those creators. Then isn't it not just reasonable or acceptable, but ethically required for someone to do everything they can to dismantle the systems they're abusing against the interests of those who are actually improving the world with their creations?
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]