3 ms·

Just because a good is non-rival does not mean it therefore should be free. For a similar example, drug discovery often takes billions of dollars of investment

Just because a good is non-rival does not mean it therefore should be free. For a similar example, drug discovery often takes billions of dollars of investment - but once discovered is very inexpensive to copy. Does that mean once discovered it should be (nearly) free for anyone to manufacture? What would you consider the second order incentives of that kind of societal structure? These arguments when given a tiny bit of thought to the incentives they create fall apart instantly. It's a good way to end up in a communist type of social failure where nothing is created and everything is scarce. The goal of these laws is to "promote the progress of science and useful arts" - it's about creating incentives that benefit the creator and the society. That's the purpose.

anonym29 1y ago
Pharmaceuticals and YouTube videos are not the same thing. Why must they be treated identically when it comes to intellectual "property" law? Doesn't it make much more sense to offer more protection and incentives to lifesaving medications than to trite clickbait and video game livestreams? Why are we conflating the value of those two? Since we're not starting from a principled approach that acknowledges that nobody can "own" an idea, and instead going with a consequentialist approach - what are the horrific, severe consequences of not giving a few pennies in ad revenue to someone uploading a compilation video of other people's work that justify treating that the EXACT same way we treat lifesaving drugs? To be clear, I'm not proposing graduated IP protection (I am the abolitionist camp when it comes to IP), I'm pointing out that if you're really primarily concerned about the harms of second order effects from lack of innovation incentives, then easily 90%+ of all copyright-protected content (memes, reaction videos, TikTok dances) should get zero protection under your own logic, as there is questionable social value (if not outright negative), and essentially zero negative ramifications of not incentivizing that kind of slop. Consequentialism may not be the tool you want to rest your argument on if your argument is that every single video on YouTube deserves just as much copyright protection as pharmaceuticals.

anonym29 1y ago

Pharmaceuticals and YouTube videos are not the same thing. Why must they be treated identically when it comes to intellectual "property" law? Doesn't it make much more sense to offer more protection and incentives to lifesaving medications than to trite clickbait and video game livestreams? Why are we conflating the value of those two? Since we're not starting from a principled approach that acknowledges that nobody can "own" an idea, and instead going with a consequentialist approach - what are the horrific, severe consequences of not giving a few pennies in ad revenue to someone uploading a compilation video of other people's work that justify treating that the EXACT same way we treat lifesaving drugs? To be clear, I'm not proposing graduated IP protection (I am the abolitionist camp when it comes to IP), I'm pointing out that if you're really primarily concerned about the harms of second order effects from lack of innovation incentives, then easily 90%+ of all copyright-protected content (memes, reaction videos, TikTok dances) should get zero protection under your own logic, as there is questionable social value (if not outright negative), and essentially zero negative ramifications of not incentivizing that kind of slop. Consequentialism may not be the tool you want to rest your argument on if your argument is that every single video on YouTube deserves just as much copyright protection as pharmaceuticals.