34 ms·

If your mother created a railroad things might be different, no?

betterunix 13y ago
Maybe, but most people seem to draw issue with "trust fund babies" and people who are born into wealth. Society does not need people living on their ancestors' fortunes, it needs people who do useful work. Copyright exists for the benefit of society; how does society benefit by being forced to pay the descendants of F. Scott Fitzgerald just to produce copies of his work? Copyright terms were extended after The Great Gatsby was written, so it is entirely bogus to claim that we might not have it without the absurdly long copyright terms we have today.
- zanny 13y ago
  > Copyright exists for the benefit of society Let us be honest, it hasn't existed for this purpose for 30+ years. It now exists to protect corporate profit centers and main franchises that big business doesn't want to enter public domain so other people could distribute their work for free and create derivatives without getting sued into oblivion.
nine_k 13y ago
Like, well, * built* a railroad? Builders usually walk away and take another building contract, without being eternally paid for what they have built.
- alexqgb 13y ago
  Right, but the owners of the RR continue to charge rent in perpetuity. The difference between straight labor and creative work is that the artist is, in theory, building an exploitable asset. They only time they get paid directly for their labor (and labor alone) is when they're operating under a work for hire agreement (e.g. a major studio movie). In this case, the vast armies of cast and crew are just like the RR workers. They clock in, do their day, get paid for that - and only that - then move on to the next job. It's a rare instance where a capital-intensive creative work (which can include novels when you factor the cost of print runs, distribution, and promotion) don't involve the backers insisting on substantial control. In this sense, it's pretty similar to VCs backing startups. If the creative talent manages to self-fund and self-distribute, it's not that they're getting paid over and over for one effort. They're commending royalties because they managed to play several roles at once.
  - betterunix 13y ago
    "The difference between straight labor and creative work is that the artist is, in theory, building an exploitable asset." How are laborers not building an exploitable asset? When last I checked, that is exactly what they do: they build exploitable assets for others. Really, it sounds like you are arguing that Fitzgerald's publisher should be able to charge for his work in perpetuity.
    - alexqgb 13y ago
      Sorry. Perhaps I should have said the artist is "building an exploitable asset for themselves." Of course, an intelligent reader would have been able to infer that's exactly simply by reading the very next line. And because this is HN, I don't make a habit of dumbing-down the discourse to a third grade level. But hey, I'm not afraid to be servicy, so if spoon-feeding is what you need, well, there you go. And now that I've discovered that reading comprehension isn't your strong suit, I can understand why a subtle detail like the distinction between "rent" and "royalties" (which I was careful to make) would have sailed straight over your head. So where more diligent readers would register my acknowledgement of the differences between tangible and intangible assets and by extension, my awareness of the distinct sets of laws that pertain to each, you turned a comprehension failure on your part into an deliberate oversight on mine, before misconstruing your own error as open advocacy on my part for an end to term limits on copyrights. To which all I can say is...riiight.

Maybe, but most people seem to draw issue with "trust fund babies" and people who are born into wealth. Society does not need people living on their ancestors' fortunes, it needs people who do useful work. Copyright exists for the benefit of society; how does society benefit by being forced to pay the descendants of F. Scott Fitzgerald just to produce copies of his work? Copyright terms were extended after The Great Gatsby was written, so it is entirely bogus to claim that we might not have it without the absurdly long copyright terms we have today.

zanny 13y ago
> Copyright exists for the benefit of society Let us be honest, it hasn't existed for this purpose for 30+ years. It now exists to protect corporate profit centers and main franchises that big business doesn't want to enter public domain so other people could distribute their work for free and create derivatives without getting sued into oblivion.

nine_k 13y ago

Like, well, * built* a railroad? Builders usually walk away and take another building contract, without being eternally paid for what they have built.

alexqgb 13y ago
Right, but the owners of the RR continue to charge rent in perpetuity. The difference between straight labor and creative work is that the artist is, in theory, building an exploitable asset. They only time they get paid directly for their labor (and labor alone) is when they're operating under a work for hire agreement (e.g. a major studio movie). In this case, the vast armies of cast and crew are just like the RR workers. They clock in, do their day, get paid for that - and only that - then move on to the next job. It's a rare instance where a capital-intensive creative work (which can include novels when you factor the cost of print runs, distribution, and promotion) don't involve the backers insisting on substantial control. In this sense, it's pretty similar to VCs backing startups. If the creative talent manages to self-fund and self-distribute, it's not that they're getting paid over and over for one effort. They're commending royalties because they managed to play several roles at once.
- betterunix 13y ago
  "The difference between straight labor and creative work is that the artist is, in theory, building an exploitable asset." How are laborers not building an exploitable asset? When last I checked, that is exactly what they do: they build exploitable assets for others. Really, it sounds like you are arguing that Fitzgerald's publisher should be able to charge for his work in perpetuity.
  - alexqgb 13y ago
    Sorry. Perhaps I should have said the artist is "building an exploitable asset for themselves." Of course, an intelligent reader would have been able to infer that's exactly simply by reading the very next line. And because this is HN, I don't make a habit of dumbing-down the discourse to a third grade level. But hey, I'm not afraid to be servicy, so if spoon-feeding is what you need, well, there you go. And now that I've discovered that reading comprehension isn't your strong suit, I can understand why a subtle detail like the distinction between "rent" and "royalties" (which I was careful to make) would have sailed straight over your head. So where more diligent readers would register my acknowledgement of the differences between tangible and intangible assets and by extension, my awareness of the distinct sets of laws that pertain to each, you turned a comprehension failure on your part into an deliberate oversight on mine, before misconstruing your own error as open advocacy on my part for an end to term limits on copyrights. To which all I can say is...riiight.