The key problem is that copyright infringement by a private individual is regarded by the court as something so serious that it negates the right to privacy. It’s a sign of the twisted values that copyright has succeeded on imposing on many legal systems. It equates the mere copying of a digital file with serious crimes that merit a prison sentence, an evident absurdity.
This is a good example of how copyright’s continuing obsession with ownership and control of digital material is warping the entire legal system in the EU. What was supposed to be simply a fair way of rewarding creators has resulted in a monstrous system of routine government surveillance carried out on hundreds of millions of innocent people just in case they copy a digital file.
I don’t want to see a end to copyright. I want it restored to what it was. Where the creator had a copyright for limited amount of time then everyone had a copyright to the work.
Now that time is beyond the amount of time that someone inspired by a copyrighted work could create some derivative of it. Unless you think someone inspired as a child would feel like bringing that inspiration to fulfilment as an elderly adult is going to happen often.
Humanity as we know it existed for ten of thousands of years without copyright. Copyright is the anti-thesis to creation. Everything humans create is iterative. Copyright along with the rest of intellectual property seeks to pervert creation for personal gain.
Art does not need copyright to survive and I would argue that intellectual property is not needed to promote the arts or science. It is designed to do the opposite which is limit creation to the benefit of the individual.
What makes this worse is the individual is now the corporation. Do you know that a lot of successful artists, particularly musicians, don’t even own their own works?
Corporations benefit disproportionally by copyright. They have lobbied for decades to further pervert the flawed intention of copyright and intellectual property to the breaking point. Simply put, going down the road of trying to prove who created what was first is wrong.
Creation does not happen in a vacuum. Pretending that we create is isolation is farcical. We are great because of all those that came before us.
The telephone was invented by multiple people. The Wright brothers had European counterparts. These issues around intellectual copyright are a lot more complex than we are ready to admit.
We have billions of people now. Stop trying to pretend any idea, drawing, tune, or writing is unique. Rude wake up call, it is not.
Thank you, I seldom see my own thoughts laid out so clearly. As a practitioner of the Dark Arts (marketing), this union of commerce and art is a foul bargain. I think it’s time the two had some time apart to work on themselves.
Art 100% needs copyright. There is a reason forgery is a crime. Copyright is meant to protect small creators. Yes it is being abused by corporations but the idea that we don’t need it is absurd. Stealing someone’s work and selling as your own is fraud. Plain and simple.
First, how do you account for all the art made before copyright existed. Second, what about all the art created everyday where the creator does not pursue copyright let alone try to enforce their rights in a court of law. These two scenarios disprove your assertion that art needs copyright.
Perhaps you are under the misconception that artists need to make a living. Art is an expression of our culture and it is not inherently tied to making money. How many people are creating art right now without the intention to sell it. I will clue you in, there is a lot of people, millions who do this everyday.
The amount of art created for personal use dwarfs that of commercial use by a thousand fold. Copyright does not need to protect these artists at all. Read that, the majority of artists do not need or ever use copyright.
All art is iterative. This means every piece of art is built upon the art that came before it. Copying is literally how it is done. You know Led Zeppelin just copied a bunch of old blues songs? Oh you didn’t because you think artists create stuff out of thin air apparently.
Stealing is depriving someone of their property. Copying does not do this at all. You are pushing a false narrative to prop up your flawed argument. Plain and simple.
Authentication of the author is not the same as copyright.
I don’t see the predictable effects of dropping IP laws as more harmful than the current reality. The idea is to protect small creators but the implementation does the opposite.
The solution, as is with so many societal issues, is UBI.
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Well sure, but “end the concept of Intellectual Property” is already a radical position to argue. Fully Automated Space Gay Communism is a little beyond the scope of the topic and a hard sell to normies.
Copyright was never about defending the creators, its origin is the industrial revolution and it was a tool of companies to protect “their” inventions (the ones of their workers actually). It was NEVER about defending the small person who actually creates things.
I disagree. It was put in place so the creators of works and inventions had exclusive rights to that work or invention for 14 years with one renewal for a total of 28 years. Then the copyright passed into the public domain. It was always about protecting the creators. The companies dominance of it came later. Just who came up with the laws and when do you think it was put in place? Just a hint look at the faces on US currency.
I think you’re mixing copyright which protects works and patients which protect inventions as well as the timelines.
I’m not, both system were devised at the same time by the founding fathers. You seem to think its all about the companies when originally it was all about the people specificity the authors. Benjamin Franklin was both. He keenly interested in protecting his ideas as he was both a inventor and a author. Even he recognized that no protection should go on forever. That corruption took place later when the unethical moved to make it so. Greed is a hole in ones soul that cannot be filled by money but the greedy think it can. Something they foresaw as a danger as well. We are living in that world today but we don’t have to forget or deny its corruption.
copyright dates to the statute of Anne. it was not invented in America.
My ideal copyright would be 15 years or death of the creator or the end of sale/support, whichever is earlier. That would mean that Portal 2 has copyright and Portal doesn’t, which sounds about right.
How about an exponentially increasing fee to retain copyright?
So Disney and Nintendo can keep doing what they are doing but also the same companies can steal the work of smaller artists almost immediately?
No thanks.
After 30 years not even Disney or Nintendo will pay a billion for exclusivity.
Let’s make copyright non-transferable. For a company to retain copyright it must employ the creator.
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To keep episode IV in copyright would cost $2^47 = $141.737 trillion
Nah. I’d even call 15 years too long.
You don’t pay a plumber every single time you use his work 15 yrs after his death.
To retain copyright:-
$2^n for year n
$1 for year 1
$2 for year 2
$4 for year 3
$1k for year 10
$32k for year 15
$1m for year 20
$1bn for year 30
Why, though? It still pointlessly favors people who already have money. Just get rid of it.
Ok, let’s say the copyright retention fee is only paid when it’s above 1k, I.e. after 10 years.
You are desperate to give rich fucks an avenue to maintain an advantage over everyone else.
No. I want to give small creators a tool to stop their work being stolen in the short term.
But I also want to force copyright monopolists to pay ever increasing tax on the property they hold that should really be in the public domain.
My proposal also means orphan works no longer exist.
Like, maybe tiered to something like 5 years: pay what it costs now, 10 years: 10 times that cost, and 15 years: 100 times, with a hard cap at 15? I could get behind that.
It doesn’t cost anything to copyright something. You just automatically own the copyright to something you create.
(This may vary outside the US; I’m not familiar with international copyright law.)
I thought there was a registration fee for copyright, but I think I mixed it up with trademark…
Yeah. Something like that. Maybe don’t even need a cap.
If you pay $2^n each year n to retain copyright then by year 30 you are into the billions.
I don’t, it’s not the 18th century and the industrial revolution. Copyright had a time and place and that isn’t the here and now. We are worse off for copyright and patients today. Today they enshrine wealth and are a tool to prevent progress and inflate cost.