5 ms·
That's all well and good, but copyright doesn't exist to promote the possible financial viability of art owned by megacorporations for centuries, nor does it ex
by acabal 12y ago
That's all well and good, but copyright doesn't exist to promote the possible financial viability of art owned by megacorporations for centuries, nor does it exist to promote financial subsidies for other art. It exists, according to the Constitution, "to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts ... for limited times".
Even if it did exist for the purpose of generating profit versus promoting culture and progress, I feel like many (except, of course, said megacorporation) can agree that its current incarnation is for a ludicrously, damagingly long amount of time.
In either case I'm not weeping for Hollywood; it's not like they've never made anything but a staggering profit regardless of copyright era, and if your argument is true then I'd rather have a handful fewer movies made than bow to the eternal stranglehold on all culture the current copyright regime entails.
- anigbrowl 12y agoI'm not trying to justify the existing copyright regime, which I also oppose; I'm saying that this is a factor you should include in your deliberations. In either case I'm not weeping for Hollywood; it's not like they've never made anything but a staggering profit regardless of copyright era Hollywood isn't a monolith. It's a disparate collection of people, many of whom slave away at their craft for years without ever making it big or seeing one of their projects pay off. You might as well say that you don't give a fig about net neutrality or some other topic at the intersection of computers and law because 'the tech industry has never made anything but a staggering profit'. Sure, if you cast your net broad enough, any long-established industry has been very successful, by definition.
- rayiner 12y ago> the purpose of generating profit versus promoting culture and progress That's a false dichotomy. Promoting culture and progress is the end, but the means is creating a property right the value of which is, like every property right, the possibility of generating a profit.
- coldtea 12y agoDepends on your theory regarding arts and profit. For others, including prominent art critics (of the European persuassion at least), "culture and progress" can mostly be harmed by profits.
- anigbrowl 12y agoSpeaking as a Euro who works in the arts, I certainly prefer that art take priority over profitability if push comes to shove, but I'm also keenly aware that if there's no profit there won't be as much funding for the art. Subsidies are sort of a nice idea and I think there's a role for them in production financing, but they're a double-edged sword - they may help some deserving projects get made, but only at the whim of the subsidy-dispensers, which gets you back to a patronage system. As well as working in film, I also enjoy opera, and I'm struck by how the San Francisco Opera does Tosca almost every damn season, presumably because someone on the board or high up on the donor list really loves it. Yeah, it's a great opera, but there are hundreds of operas and even a moderately large and well-financed company like the SF Opera only does about 12 productions in a year. They aim for a mix of reliable favorites and interesting new works/productions, but the near-permanent presence of Tosca on their calendar is a reminder of how badly patronage can skew things. By rights, it ought to be staged every 5-6 years; having it on stage almost every year means proportionally fewer productions of other great Verdi operas such as La Traviata.