5 ms·

I think this is a great idea. Free then make it cost more. A lot could enter the public domain, and valuable IP could be kept by companies as long as they’re

I think this is a great idea. Free then make it cost more. A lot could enter the public domain, and valuable IP could be kept by companies as long as they’re willing to pay.

autoexec 7mo ago
I think that's a horrible idea. There's zero benefit to society in letting corporations like Disney that can afford to pay keep works out of the public domain longer than others.
- underlipton 7mo ago
  If Disney had to pay the federal government a few billion each to keep absolute control over their oldest works, every year, no tax games, that would be pretty great for society. But it's also probably true that the tax games would indeed ensue. Something something low trust, we can't have nice things.
- awesome_dude 7mo ago
  Disney are able to pay that amount because their IP is still generating massive income. I'm not a fan of Disney at all, just pointing out what i belive might be the flaw in the argument.
  - autoexec 7mo ago
    > Disney are able to pay that amount because their IP is still generating massive income. That's entirely irrelevant though. The point of copyright isn't to protect income. The point is to encourage the creation of new works. Disney doesn't need 100+ years of exclusive profits on something to encourage them to create new works. Nobody does. I'd even argue that the more popular a work is the more important it is that it enter the public domain sooner rather than later. The less cultural relevancy something has when it enters the public domain the less likely it will inspire new works to be created.
    - ryandrake 7mo ago
      Another thing that doesn't get brought up enough: Copyright is not really needed to encourage creation. Suppose Copyright as a concept was overturned and no longer existed. Would Disney just say "Well, it was a great run, but we're going to close up shop and no longer create works." Would an independent artist who needs to paint something decide not to just because it couldn't be copyright? "The creation of new works" doesn't need to be encouraged. It's the default. Cavemen still carved on cave walls without copyright.
      - autoexec 7mo ago
        You're absolutely right that artists can't stop themselves from creating, but I think that a reasonable amount of protection still does encourage more works. Many works require a good deal of investment and time and if people had little to no chance of making money or breaking even on that investment a lot of works wouldn't get made. Another nice aspect of copyright law is that it establishes where a work originated. Authorship gets lost in a lot of the things we treat as if they don't have copyrights. For example memes, or the way every MP3 of a parody song on P2P platforms ended up listing Weird Al as the artist regardless of his involvement. It also happens in cases where copyright really doesn't exist like with recipes and as a result we don't really know who first came up with many of the foods we love. A very limited copyright term would more firmly establish who we should thank for the things we enjoy.
        cogman10 7mo ago
        IMO, copyright is something that should be shorter the bigger the media producer is. The reason we need a copyright in the first place is to stop someone like disney just vacuuming up popular works and republishing them because they have the money to do it. Disney, however, doesn't need almost any copyright to still encourage them to make new products. They'll do that regardless. For an individual author, copyright should basically be for their lifetime. If they sell it, the copyright should only last 5 years after that. A company like disney should get copyrights for like 1 year. But also the type of media matters. IMO, news outlets and journalists should get copyrights for 1 day max. Old news is almost worthless and it's in the public interest that news be generally accessible and recordable.
- chipdale 7mo ago
  > There's zero benefit to society Wouldn't it result in additional tax revenue while preventing Disney's movies from proliferating throughout society unimpeded? In all honesty, I really think you should think this idea through. Compared to the status quo, where we get zero tax revenue from intellectual property, this system would guarantee an expiration based on commercial viability. It couldn't sustain forever because the scale would always accelerate at a rate faster than any economy could sustain it. But it would have this additional benefit in that the more some intellectual property becomes commercially sustainable, the more revenue society can collect. How does that even begin to approach horrible when it's magnitudes more equitable than the status quo?
  - autoexec 7mo ago
    > Wouldn't it result in additional tax revenue while preventing Disney's movies from proliferating throughout society unimpeded? I mean they already pay taxes (allegedly). When artists create good works that become popular the state also gets sales taxes from the consumer side as money changes hands in exchange for the work. If we just wanted money we'd be better served by getting rid of the loopholes and tax games the wealthy can take advantage of to avoid paying their share. I'm pretty adverse to the idea of codifying a system where people with vast sums of money can pay for extra rights under the law. If anything we should offer more support to small artists and not turn them into an underclass, but at a minimum we should enforce an even playing field. It's a bit twisted to call a "rights for those who can pay" system "equitable" Remember that the goal here is to end rent seeking, not allow it but only for the wealthy for as long as it's profitable for them. If the tax is high enough to stop the bad behavior we might as well have just banned it in the first place because if it isn't high enough to stop it, then the tax just becomes another cost of doing business and that's ignoring the fact that more tax money doesn't nessesarily benefit society to the extent that it should. Far too many tax dollars end up in the pockets of private corporations seeking profits (although that's a different problem) The fact is that our economy and our culture will both benefit by works entering the public domain as that allows new creators to build on and explore those ideas which means more people being hired to work on those new projects, more products for consumers to purchase from retailers, and more taxes going to the government from a wider variety of sources which is itself a very good thing since mega-corps with monopolies on our culture and the tax revenue those cultural works generate can give those corporations a greater influence over government.
- Gigachad 7mo ago
  With an increasing cost for age, they would eventually be paying an absurd amount for content of decreasing value. Either they end up funding the government massively, or they decide to drop commercially irrelevant copyright.
- shiroiuma 7mo ago
  How does getting tons of money from Disney into a government's tax coffers not benefit society? That's money that the government wouldn't need to directly collect from citizens other ways.
  - autoexec 7mo ago
    Money going to the government in the form of taxes doesn't necessarily result in a benefit to society at all, let alone one that justifies keeping people from being able to access and expand on their own culture while also killing off all the economic and culture benefits new works would bring.

I think this is a great idea. Free then make it cost more. A lot could enter the public domain, and valuable IP could be kept by companies as long as they’re willing to pay.

autoexec 7mo ago

I think that's a horrible idea. There's zero benefit to society in letting corporations like Disney that can afford to pay keep works out of the public domain longer than others.

underlipton 7mo ago
If Disney had to pay the federal government a few billion each to keep absolute control over their oldest works, every year, no tax games, that would be pretty great for society. But it's also probably true that the tax games would indeed ensue. Something something low trust, we can't have nice things.
awesome_dude 7mo ago
Disney are able to pay that amount because their IP is still generating massive income. I'm not a fan of Disney at all, just pointing out what i belive might be the flaw in the argument.
- autoexec 7mo ago
  > Disney are able to pay that amount because their IP is still generating massive income. That's entirely irrelevant though. The point of copyright isn't to protect income. The point is to encourage the creation of new works. Disney doesn't need 100+ years of exclusive profits on something to encourage them to create new works. Nobody does. I'd even argue that the more popular a work is the more important it is that it enter the public domain sooner rather than later. The less cultural relevancy something has when it enters the public domain the less likely it will inspire new works to be created.
  - ryandrake 7mo ago
    Another thing that doesn't get brought up enough: Copyright is not really needed to encourage creation. Suppose Copyright as a concept was overturned and no longer existed. Would Disney just say "Well, it was a great run, but we're going to close up shop and no longer create works." Would an independent artist who needs to paint something decide not to just because it couldn't be copyright? "The creation of new works" doesn't need to be encouraged. It's the default. Cavemen still carved on cave walls without copyright.
    - autoexec 7mo ago
      You're absolutely right that artists can't stop themselves from creating, but I think that a reasonable amount of protection still does encourage more works. Many works require a good deal of investment and time and if people had little to no chance of making money or breaking even on that investment a lot of works wouldn't get made. Another nice aspect of copyright law is that it establishes where a work originated. Authorship gets lost in a lot of the things we treat as if they don't have copyrights. For example memes, or the way every MP3 of a parody song on P2P platforms ended up listing Weird Al as the artist regardless of his involvement. It also happens in cases where copyright really doesn't exist like with recipes and as a result we don't really know who first came up with many of the foods we love. A very limited copyright term would more firmly establish who we should thank for the things we enjoy.
      - cogman10 7mo ago
        IMO, copyright is something that should be shorter the bigger the media producer is. The reason we need a copyright in the first place is to stop someone like disney just vacuuming up popular works and republishing them because they have the money to do it. Disney, however, doesn't need almost any copyright to still encourage them to make new products. They'll do that regardless. For an individual author, copyright should basically be for their lifetime. If they sell it, the copyright should only last 5 years after that. A company like disney should get copyrights for like 1 year. But also the type of media matters. IMO, news outlets and journalists should get copyrights for 1 day max. Old news is almost worthless and it's in the public interest that news be generally accessible and recordable.
chipdale 7mo ago
> There's zero benefit to society Wouldn't it result in additional tax revenue while preventing Disney's movies from proliferating throughout society unimpeded? In all honesty, I really think you should think this idea through. Compared to the status quo, where we get zero tax revenue from intellectual property, this system would guarantee an expiration based on commercial viability. It couldn't sustain forever because the scale would always accelerate at a rate faster than any economy could sustain it. But it would have this additional benefit in that the more some intellectual property becomes commercially sustainable, the more revenue society can collect. How does that even begin to approach horrible when it's magnitudes more equitable than the status quo?
- autoexec 7mo ago
  > Wouldn't it result in additional tax revenue while preventing Disney's movies from proliferating throughout society unimpeded? I mean they already pay taxes (allegedly). When artists create good works that become popular the state also gets sales taxes from the consumer side as money changes hands in exchange for the work. If we just wanted money we'd be better served by getting rid of the loopholes and tax games the wealthy can take advantage of to avoid paying their share. I'm pretty adverse to the idea of codifying a system where people with vast sums of money can pay for extra rights under the law. If anything we should offer more support to small artists and not turn them into an underclass, but at a minimum we should enforce an even playing field. It's a bit twisted to call a "rights for those who can pay" system "equitable" Remember that the goal here is to end rent seeking, not allow it but only for the wealthy for as long as it's profitable for them. If the tax is high enough to stop the bad behavior we might as well have just banned it in the first place because if it isn't high enough to stop it, then the tax just becomes another cost of doing business and that's ignoring the fact that more tax money doesn't nessesarily benefit society to the extent that it should. Far too many tax dollars end up in the pockets of private corporations seeking profits (although that's a different problem) The fact is that our economy and our culture will both benefit by works entering the public domain as that allows new creators to build on and explore those ideas which means more people being hired to work on those new projects, more products for consumers to purchase from retailers, and more taxes going to the government from a wider variety of sources which is itself a very good thing since mega-corps with monopolies on our culture and the tax revenue those cultural works generate can give those corporations a greater influence over government.
Gigachad 7mo ago
With an increasing cost for age, they would eventually be paying an absurd amount for content of decreasing value. Either they end up funding the government massively, or they decide to drop commercially irrelevant copyright.
shiroiuma 7mo ago
How does getting tons of money from Disney into a government's tax coffers not benefit society? That's money that the government wouldn't need to directly collect from citizens other ways.
- autoexec 7mo ago
  Money going to the government in the form of taxes doesn't necessarily result in a benefit to society at all, let alone one that justifies keeping people from being able to access and expand on their own culture while also killing off all the economic and culture benefits new works would bring.