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Copyright Monopoly Enforcement Today Is A Mass Psychosis
- bpatrianakos 13y agoThis offers no helpful information. It's not even an argument really. Comparing examples of ridiculous 200 year old laws to what's going on today without any concrete examples aside from a half-assed list of proposals in parenthesis is not an argument. It's preaching to the converted. Torrentfreak is to copyright issues what Fox News is to Repiblican politics. It just serves to start a discussion where everyone pats each other on the back for agreeing with each other. Isn't there a list of domains that aren't allowed to be submitted and if so why hasn't Torrentfreak been added to it yet?
- pjdorrell 13y agoIt's true that Rick Falkvinge is "preaching to the converted". But his preaching is slightly more coherent than the excesses of Fox News, and his target audience is an intellectual audience. I don't know what it is about Hacker News that guarantees a front page appearance for every article written by Falkvinge, but he is obviously getting the required votes. Perhaps many Hacker News readers are members of "the converted". Perhaps the moderators of Hacker News are among the converted. I would recommend against "censoring" Falkvinge. But his writings do deserve to be carefully analysed and refuted, line by line if necessary. I would like to start with the term "Copyright Monopoly". There is no Copyright Monopoly. Each copyright is one monopoly, so there are many "copyright monopolies" (and economically, those monopolies are a bad thing). But there is no "Copyright Monopoly". There is a recognisable "Copyright Industry", and perhaps also a "Copyright Enforcement Industry", and there are various political lobbyists and interest groups associated with those "industries". But not actually a single "monopoly" in the technical economic sense of the word.
- tzs 13y agoStill waiting for Falkvinge to make actual concrete suggestions as to how to allow the unlimited unrestricted copying he advocates without making it almost impossible for artists to afford to be artists. When asked this, his usual response if that this is not his problem.
- skylan_q 13y ago...without making it almost impossible for artists to afford to be artists If we never had copyright enforcement, would we be thinking this way? Jokes aren't copyright-able, but we still have comedians. These copyright laws had their place in helping to alleviate a public goods problem of getting art to people. It allowed for the development of record labels and companies to distribute music. The distribution problem is over. The law is obsolete. The model is dying, and so are the types of jobs that depend on that model. We can't simply say that the model is justified because it's already there and in place.
- pandaman 13y agoWhat about financing problem, how are you going to finance production of movies, games and, even, music? And, most importantly, how are you going to compel authors to give their work into public domain? If there is not going to be significant copyright protection you can be sure there are going to be technical means doing the same except without a limited term. They are actually already there due to the weakened copyright. And no, teenagers are not going to crack DRM schemes the next day.
- acabal 13y agoThe way art has been financed for the centuries before copyright existed: patronage. It seems like the modern equivalent is going to be Kickstarter et al.
- pandaman 13y agoSure, if you can afford that. Most people, especially among the torrentfreak audience are not going to afford even recording of an album for few K. I definitely cannot afford few dozen million for a blockbuster movie. And if Kickstarter had been sufficient there would not be torrentfreak at all - people would happily enjoy their donated/free art and stayed away from the copyrighted works, would not they?
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- siliconc0w 13y agoWe should pay for digital IP the same way we pay for any other public good. Everyone puts a little in, maybe those with more contribute more, and then you allow everyone to benefit from the good because it can be given to everyone at little to no marginal cost. Econ 101. Challenging stuff.
- pjdorrell 13y agoDoctor Falkvinge has diagnosed "Mass Psychosis". I would like to present a different "diagnosis" - the copyright wars are not a psychosis, they are the result of tension between two distinct moral justifications. The first moral justification is that copyright serves the public interest. Under this justification, the ideal form of copyright law may change as circumstances change. For example, the public might conclude that maximum benefit is achieved by having no legal restrictions on the copying of digital music, because the benefit of freely available music would exceed any consequent reduction in the production of new music. The second justification is that the creators of digital content deserve to "own" their content, even after they have published it. Under this justification, there is no reason ever to change the form of copyright, and the issue of public benefit is irrelevant. Reducing copyright on music so that everyone could have more music for less money would just be "stealing", that is, changing the law would itself be an act of "theft", and therefore immoral. I discuss this diagnosis at length in http://thinkinghard.com/blog/ThereAreTwoDistinctJustificationsOfCopyright.html http://thinkinghard.com/blog/ThereAreTwoDistinctJustificatio... .