4 ms·

I haven't read all comments yet, but some commenters seem to make the presumption that copyright is about artists. It is not. It is about the rightsholder which

by BjornW 17y ago

I haven't read all comments yet, but some commenters seem to make the presumption that copyright is about artists. It is not. It is about the rightsholder which may in- or exclude artists. I'm writing this on my commute so I don't have the research to back it up at the moment, but I remember research has been done on the rightsholders and if I remember correctly only a small percentage were creators and thus actively contributed to culture. The larger percentage of the rightsholders were merely parasiting on ip rights created by creators already dead or who (had to) sold their ip-rights off for a meager sum. Copyright is therefor also less about incentive since it mostly benefits those holding on the 'old' creations and milking it instead of creating new works. I recommend reading the essays of Dutch professor Joost Smiers. He makes some interesting (and some wacky) points and is an interesting read.

Sam_Odio 17y ago
Copyright law gives ownership rights to a work's creator. What (s)he does with those rights (keep it, license it, sell it, or trade it) is his/her choice. Just because they have made the choice to sell or bequeath the copyright doesn't mean they didn't benefit from its existence. Your point akin to saying that startup founders aren't rewarded for innovating because a public company's stock is rarely owned by the company's original founders.
- asdflkj 17y ago
  One major difference: it takes a lot of work and resources to turn a startup into a public company, but it takes little to turn an artistic work into a product. One might argue that record labels provide most of their value by finding good music, and saving customers the time it would take to do that on their own. (IMO this view is far too charitable to the labels.) Even then, internet is already doing this job better than the labels, and is still rapidly improving. The law should keep up. Saying that artists benefited from their arrangement with the labels is akin to saying that indentured servants benefited from theirs. That is, true in a narrow sense--the indentured servants did get food and shelter, didn't they?
jacoblyles 17y ago
That's an incredibly short-sighted view of the issue. A larger market for the copy rights to art works increases the return earned by the artists who make them. Do you think artists should be prohibited from selling their copyrights, or that there is anything inherently wrong about them doing so?
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
illumen 17y ago
The situation is that artists get ripped off by business people. Becoming more of a business person (in a lot of cases) destroys the art that person makes. In Australia there are new laws for collectable artwork. Where the original artists will always get a percentage of the work from every sale. As the work gets resold, always for a higher value, the artist gets a cut each time. Good for artists, ok for collectors, good for government controlling artists. To counter your argument - the market does not get reduced - but the artists also get a cut. I'm not sure of all the sociological research that went into this policy, but it seems very sensible. I also know that it is backed up with scientific research - so you can look up the reasoning behind it. I know some of the research was that many artists sell their work for almost nothing, and the collectors make most of the money. This has been going on for a long time. Consider Van Gogh who lived in poverty for all of his life... even though his work has generated many millions of euros. If this law was in place, he would have perhaps been able to share in some of the value his work produced(money wise). Places like Sweden and Australia are way ahead in many areas socially compared the the US. Especially in the area of copyright, and helping artists. Sweden is a world leader socially, so paying close attention to what they do, and the scientific research behind their social policies is worthwhile. Even though this seat is a political victory, it shows a deep understanding of the issues by the Swedish people - who are a very well educated population.

by BjornW 17y ago

Sam_Odio 17y ago

Copyright law gives ownership rights to a work's creator. What (s)he does with those rights (keep it, license it, sell it, or trade it) is his/her choice. Just because they have made the choice to sell or bequeath the copyright doesn't mean they didn't benefit from its existence. Your point akin to saying that startup founders aren't rewarded for innovating because a public company's stock is rarely owned by the company's original founders.

asdflkj 17y ago
One major difference: it takes a lot of work and resources to turn a startup into a public company, but it takes little to turn an artistic work into a product. One might argue that record labels provide most of their value by finding good music, and saving customers the time it would take to do that on their own. (IMO this view is far too charitable to the labels.) Even then, internet is already doing this job better than the labels, and is still rapidly improving. The law should keep up. Saying that artists benefited from their arrangement with the labels is akin to saying that indentured servants benefited from theirs. That is, true in a narrow sense--the indentured servants did get food and shelter, didn't they?

jacoblyles 17y ago

That's an incredibly short-sighted view of the issue. A larger market for the copy rights to art works increases the return earned by the artists who make them. Do you think artists should be prohibited from selling their copyrights, or that there is anything inherently wrong about them doing so?

deleted 17y ago
[deleted]

illumen 17y ago

The situation is that artists get ripped off by business people. Becoming more of a business person (in a lot of cases) destroys the art that person makes. In Australia there are new laws for collectable artwork. Where the original artists will always get a percentage of the work from every sale. As the work gets resold, always for a higher value, the artist gets a cut each time. Good for artists, ok for collectors, good for government controlling artists. To counter your argument - the market does not get reduced - but the artists also get a cut. I'm not sure of all the sociological research that went into this policy, but it seems very sensible. I also know that it is backed up with scientific research - so you can look up the reasoning behind it. I know some of the research was that many artists sell their work for almost nothing, and the collectors make most of the money. This has been going on for a long time. Consider Van Gogh who lived in poverty for all of his life... even though his work has generated many millions of euros. If this law was in place, he would have perhaps been able to share in some of the value his work produced(money wise). Places like Sweden and Australia are way ahead in many areas socially compared the the US. Especially in the area of copyright, and helping artists. Sweden is a world leader socially, so paying close attention to what they do, and the scientific research behind their social policies is worthwhile. Even though this seat is a political victory, it shows a deep understanding of the issues by the Swedish people - who are a very well educated population.