Should Intellectual Property exist?

[Plains-Cow]

People make your version of "real art" all the time. We used to have it on our refrigerator while the kids were growing up. Anyone can make all the art they want based on anything or theme anytime. Copyright just concerns making money or gaining public benefit off other people's art or work without permission.

Genuinely not true. I can cite dozens of 100% free, 100% community-driven projects based on copyrighted works that were C&D'd (Cease and Desist) because the copyright holder didn't want it to somehow be a challenge to the copyright.

But wait, am I saying that a fanwork that is not even sold can challenge copyright?

Oh yes.

You see, the wicked serpent that is copyright operates by forcing you to defend it. Without enough vigorous defense of "your" idea, then others might be allowed to carve niches where they can sell derivatives featuring your characters so long as the media is different enough.

This means that people can't even make fan projects for free without the copyright holder needing to stop them, lest their "ownership" over the idea weakens even slightly.

 

[Birdjaguar]

I see you agree with me. Do you believe in ownership of private property?

 

[Plains-Cow]

But this doesn’t. For a few reasons:

He’s not copying your money, he’s copying your account, which allows him to control your money, no duplication. We don’t want that. I’m with you, I have an information yearns to be free ideology. But it’s super complicated, so the fun part is figuring how to address these complications. The debate is on how to carve perimeters. That’s why I’m “arguing” with Lexicus, our positions are basically the same zoomed out at all.

Second money suuuuuuuuuuuuper does mean anything backed by physical resources. It’s backing is taxes, contract enforcement, that’s about it. Convenience to from those base cases does of the lifting. But your money isn’t a guarantee on resources at all. Not on its own.

Right now money is printed by congressional acts, by central banking privilege, and commercial banking privilege.

There is nothing to stop you from printing your own money, it’s just to get people to accept it requires them to demand your money. The USA does this through taxes. Chase Bank does this through contracts ultimately enforced by US courts, and knowing you’ll take their loan to pay USA taxes, or sell your loan money to someone who will.

That’s it, that’s the backing of money. It’s an idea agreed upon by a political body that enforces it by demanding the same currency back with force.

Then he's just stealing my ability to secure my own funds and transferring them to himself? The entire point of a password is for protection against theft, which copyright doesn't prevent. It prevents copying.

I know money is not a guarantee of resources. I know what inflation is lol.

I can't print my own dollars that pretend to be US currency because US currency is not intended to even be art (despite the art on dollars and the fact that some might consider dollars a form of art). They are intended to be finite representations of finite wealth humans can exchange with one another. It's a total apples-to-oranges thing to compare dollars to copyright. Abolishing copyright doesn't have anything to do with losing your bank account.

 

[Plains-Cow]

I see you agree with me. Do you believe in ownership of private property?

Is this a quote for me or someone else? I don't know.

Also yes, I do believe in private property.

Edit: maybe we need to define what we mean by that, though.

 

[Hygro]

Dollars are (theoretically) backed by something. If people just copy money, they are attempting to manufacture representative tokens for real goods that don't exist. The problem isn't the copying, it's the fact they're copying tokens that (theoretically) represent finite resources. Ergo, when they redeem copied dollars in the form of buying real goods, it's a form of fraud. The only reason governments are allowed to copy money is because they have a monopoly on force, allowing them to devalue currencies as desired. If you became Supreme Dictator, you could copy dollars until your heart's sated and the value is crashed. However, you can make an infinite amount of copies of a book, a video, a movie, etc, and the original still exists in an untainted form because movies/music/books are not mediums of currency exchange but forms of art. Art which is only profitable in the way it is because of draconian copyright which is dangled over the heads of creatives as if it's their only salvation from starving.

Comparing copying dollars to copying ideas is about as apples-to-oranges as you can get, I think.

Similarly, if someone works hard to make a thing, they eschewed industry and earning the bucks to make their idea, and the idea takes off, you could say it’s just an idea and not giving them monopoly on the commercialization of that idea isn’t defrauding them of real resources. But it’s not that different with money, you are ultimately not rewarding them for their work. You have changed the equation of what resources they get to debit from the total.

There’s a concept in economics called externalities. If a firm gets the revenue but their pollution costs are borne by the community, the product has negative externalities. Firms will overproduce because their costs are subsidized by others and the benefits are captured by themselves.

The flip side is positive externalities. These give the community benefits of value that they don’t pay for, but the producer does, and the producer doesn’t get compensated.

Things that produce positive externalities are good, but because of their nature, are under produced.

The basic way to deal with externalities is to subsidize positive ones and tax negative ones.

Removing someone’s monopoly right on their IP makes into a positive externality good. That’s awesome, except we need the subsidy or it gets under produced, which is worse than before.

Like I said, it’s complex.

 

[Plains-Cow]

I read far better than I sit through and watch any video. It's hard to explain, bit of a derail. All I can say is trust me, I guess

But your argument keeps changing. I understand the abuses of copyright law, IP, patents, etc. I understand how it can be used to shutdown projects that it arguably shouldn't be able to. I understand it can be used in frivolous and needless ways, as a way to exercise power.

I'm not arguing with any of that. I am arguing, specifically, with the concept that because all work is derivative, stealing it is impossible. Because that is far wider-ranging than simply IP rights or copyright in general.

I am a fan of simple solutions wherever possible. But like Hygro is talking about, this stuff touches on a number of super complex subjects. They can't be handwaved away.

My argument is not changing at all, though? It's to abolish copyright. That's it.

 

[Hygro]

Then he's just stealing my ability to secure my own funds and transferring them to himself? The entire point of a password is for protection against theft, which copyright doesn't prevent. It prevents copying.

I know money is not a guarantee of resources. I know what inflation is lol.

I can't print my own dollars that pretend to be US currency because US currency is not intended to even be art (despite the art on dollars and the fact that some might consider dollars a form of art). They are intended to be finite representations of finite wealth humans can exchange with one another. It's a total apples-to-oranges thing to compare dollars to copyright. Abolishing copyright doesn't have anything to do with losing your bank account.

You also can’t make a song and legally say you are some specific artist and then collect the streaming revenue. But you can make your own. And you can make your own money.

 

[Plains-Cow]

Similarly, if someone works hard to make a thing, they eschewed industry and earning the bucks to make their idea, and the idea takes off, you could say it’s just an idea and not giving them monopoly on the commercialization of that idea isn’t defrauding them of real resources. But it’s not that different with money, you are ultimately not rewarding them for their work. You have changed the equation of what resources they get to debit from the total.

There’s a concept in economics called externalities. If a firm gets the revenue but their pollution costs are borne by the community, the product has negative externalities. Firms will overproduce because their costs are subsidized by others and the benefits are captured by themselves.

The flip side is positive externalities. These give the community benefits of value that they don’t pay for, but the producer does, and the producer doesn’t get compensated.

Things that produce positive externalities are good, but because of their nature, are under produced.

The basic way to deal with externalities is to subsidize positive ones and tax negative ones.

Removing someone’s monopoly right on their IP makes into a positive externality good. That’s awesome, except we need the subsidy or it gets under produced, which is worse than before.

Like I said, it’s complex.

If you factor in missed opportunity costs for everything that everyone does in life, everyone is owed countless dollars from some agency or another. Externalities and copyright don't seem to have much of an overlap because I think it's a false statement that without the "subsidy" copyright provides (which is imo an illusion in the form of promising ownership over the unownable), that nothing would be made. How else is anything good in the public domain in existence? Copyright needs to be abolished because it will only ever be used as a tool of suppression under the guise that it's preventing an impossible-to-realize crime.

 

[Plains-Cow]

You also can’t make a song and legally say you are some specific artist and then collect the streaming revenue. But you can make your own. And you can make your own money.

Everything is derivative. Why doesn't the inventor of musical scales get royalties? Or instruments? Why allow anything to even be in the public domain, and not allow everything and anything to be copyrightable since that's apparently the only driver of innovation? The idea that money is the reward for making a good song, or a blight-resistant potato, or a cure for cancer, and not that the realization of these things into being as the true reward, will always lead to more and more copyright and pain than anything good, because as I've said, it's easier to just start copyrighting everything you can and charging license fees rather than actually making anything new.

 

[danjuno]

Except that freedom from IP doesn't free us from capitalism, which means Tesla still dies poor and alone, and Edison is seen as a successful innovator, with the narrative only changing many years later (and even then, not completely).

This is why it seems very meritocratic. "just do what you want, and may the best people win", except, we all know that's exactly how stuff doesn't work out, IP rights or not.

IP is a problem precisely because it's part of the bedrock of the capitalist concept of property. Everything, physical or not, is commodified under capitalism.

 

[Hygro]

If you factor in missed opportunity costs for everything that everyone does in life, everyone is owed countless dollars from some agency or another. Externalities and copyright don't seem to have much of an overlap because I think it's a false statement that without the "subsidy" copyright provides (which is imo an illusion in the form of promising ownership over the unownable), that nothing would be made. How else is anything good in the public domain in existence? Copyright needs to be abolished because it will only ever be used as a tool of suppression under the guise that it's preventing an impossible-to-realize crime.

"Opportunity cost" is the literal one next thing you would have done had you not done the one thing you did. I understand what you mean, one of the abuses of monarchy or Romanist slavery or sharecropping or all kinds of abuses is "I own this, so I can make the agreement to say you can use it, so I perpetually collect rents from you and your children and their children etc.

It's bad, and what you are saying is on track to pushing the needle one step less bad in that vein.

But in terms of externalities, it exactly applies. The more people are incentivized, by money, prestige, interest in the topic, anything, the more they will do that thing. The nature of a negative externality is that it causes the product with that externality to be overproduced, subsidized by not-the-producer. The nature of a positive externality is that it gets under produced.

If a work of art has a value, like how it's sick it is, or how much it inspires, or how thought provoking, etc. that's value. The enjoyers or consumers of that art are gaining that value. But if the producer isn't compensated in money, recognition, personal satisfaction, etc, then they are less likely to bother. As a whole, if there's less incentive, there's less output. If there's less output, the top 100 won't be as good (for art, there's a time bottleneck in consumption so it's disproportionately about "the best"). If the top art is worse, that sucks and we all suffer. And in art, as you said all things are derivative, and lower quality derives lower quality.

This isn't black and white, but these trends are real. Microeconomics defines the optimal and confines of our world, but of course things don't happen exactly. I have made probably 300 hours of music, and haven't made a cent. But if I was making any money at all I would be making more and better music. I wouldn't be trying to get a job in software which pulls me away.

While I examine this with my own anecdote of incentives, the nature of externalities is quite technical.

 

[Plains-Cow]

"Opportunity cost" is the literal one next thing you would have done had you not done the one thing you did. I understand what you mean, one of the abuses of monarchy or Romanist slavery or sharecropping or all kinds of abuses is "I own this, so I can make the agreement to say you can use it, so I perpetually collect rents from you and your children and their children etc.

It's bad, and what you are saying is on track to pushing the needle one step less bad in that vein.

But in terms of externalities, it exactly applies. The more people is incentivized, by money, prestige, interest in the topic, anything, the more they will do that thing. The nature of a negative externality is that it causes the product with that externality to be overproduced, subsidized by not-the-producer. The nature of a positive externality is that it gets under produced.

If a work of art has a value, like how it's sick it is, or how much it inspires, or how thought provoking, etc. that's value. The enjoyers or consumers of that art are gaining that value. But if the producer isn't compensated in money, recognition, personal satisfaction, etc, then they are less likely to bother. As a whole, if there's less incentive, there's less output. If there's less output, the top 100 won't be as good (for art, there's a time bottleneck in consumption so it's disproportionately about "the best"). If the top art is worse, that sucks and we all suffer. And in art, as you said all things are derivative, and lower quality derives lower quality.

This isn't black and white, but these trends are real. Microeconomics defines the optimal and confines of our world, but of course things don't happen exactly. I have made probably 300 hours of music, and haven't made a cent. But if I was making any money at all I would be making more and better music. I wouldn't be trying to get a job in software which pulls me away.

While I examine this with my own anecdote of incentives, the nature of externalities is quite technical.

If money automatically made things good, then we would have better medicines, better food, healthier populations and happier cities wherever more of it is able to secure itself via IP "rights." Instead, we have companies that do anything possible to draaaag out thier IP "rights" and coast as long as possible on "their" purchased ideas rather than make anything new. Instead of actual progress where the reward is the good thing coming into existence, what we see are capitalist dystopias where people are crushed under power dynamics that would make a serf's head spin all while being sold Star Wars (tm) brand-partnered Dole lettuce. It's a caricature of a society, and I can't help but feel like making art about money in the end is akin to saying, "You complain about monetizing art, yet you partake in making art. Curious." The perverse nature of copyright is a pillar of capitalism in all its forms: early, late, fascism, etc.

If people want money for their art, then they can sell their physical art and ask for contributions in the form of thanks in the case of digital art if people like it enough to give some money. No copyright needed for any of that. The fear of many artists is that they won't be able to monetize their art under copyright. Ironically, abolishing copyright would probably do much more to make them money, as it allows for decentralization of ideas amongst countless local communities of fans and artists who can give money and buy art as they please rather than have to go through the only approved source for the artists' works. Same in science, physics, medicine, etc. Defense of any form of copyright inevitably leads to the system we have today.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Without copyright, the Hollywood plagiarism and "ownership of thoughts" industry falls apart, and fans no longer need to worry as much about such things as the machine that fuels copyright withers and dies. Then everyone can make real art based on whatever they want. Plagiarism is only considered a big deal because of the dollar implications behind it and the pressures to get more dollars thanks to the copyright system. Otherwise it'd just be seen as a dick move that's easily debunked, just like if I were to say that I wrote Star Wars. As I said, I'm fine with people saying "I did this first," but others who do it different or better should be allowed to do so without being molested.

There are enough similarities between Star Wars and Dune that Frank Herbert considered suing George Lucas.

Fast-forward and you get hordes of Star Wars fans claiming FH plagiarized Star Wars. Apparently math is hard for these people, as they think that someone who wrote and published a book in 1965 could plagiarize a movie that didn't come out until 1977.

It is a private property issue. What do people own and control? Do I own my face or its image? At what point does anything "personal" become public information?

Out of curiosity, I did a Google image search for myself. There were more hits than I thought there would be for my name, but it's reassuring to see that not one image is of me.

You and I aren't talking about the same people. Many authors don't earn millions. In fact, generally-speaking, the famous authors a lot of us know, make their money from TV or film tie-ins, merchandising, that kind of thing.

I'm trying to break down the fact that nobody "owns" a thought, this therefore means it can't be stolen. The article you provided really seems to hinge on the analogy of selling a piece of art as a commission, and being owed money for making art in the first place. But these don't seem like comparable examples, because plenty of people make art for free. The requirement for commissions in the first place stems from capitalism. It doesn't stem from the idea of copyrighting their art so they can ensure only they can sell it for a million pounds or whatever (backed up by, well, most of the history of art, where many artists were and are, in fact, dirt poor).

The fact that abuse happens, doesn't mean that therefore nobody owns anything. Writing of course borrows from uncredited (and at times, explicitly credited) historical references and other cultural artifacts. But that's not the same as plagiarism. The argument against copyright in this instance goes too far, and it harms actual creatives. Not people looking to make a quick buck.

Of course there aren't that many millionaire authors. Isaac Asimov's actual jobs while he wrote science fiction and science articles on the side included a stint in the army (drafted fairly close to the end of WWII) and many years of teaching chemistry at a university. I don't remember offhand how many years he waited before deciding that he had a sufficiently steady income from writing that he dared quit his teaching job to write full-time.

Contrast that to J.K. Rowling, who wrote a book that became popular. But the real money was in the movies and licensing everything from wands to action figures to Harry Potter toilet paper.


Art commissions... I've done a few, in 3-D needlepoint. The client explained what she wanted, the colors, trims, size... and I created the patterns I used. I've never published those patterns, never submitted them to any of the craft magazines, and the projects are detailed enough that most crafters would consider it too much work to reverse-engineer it to create their own patterns. And for the complex stuff, it's one thing to figure out the flat part of the pattern. It's another thing to figure out how to sew it together. As mentioned previously, I don't take the short cut that involves gluing something together. I actually figure out how to sew it together. This could end up requiring the use of curved needles, carpet needles, and pliers. But when it's finished, it's all sewn. No glue required.

It was a bit surreal and funny one day, when my grandmother's friend came over for coffee. She had a coaster with her, and said it was so pretty, and maybe I'd like to copy the pattern and sell it at the craft fairs?

I took one look at it and started to laugh. I told her I didn't need to copy the pattern - I'd made this coaster myself. I knew it wasn't someone else's copy of the set I'd sold a few months previously, as there's a technique I use on the reverse side that other people don't. That means I can always tell my work from other peoples'.


Plagiarism and historical references is only meaningful in the sense that reference works or previously copyrighted historical fiction can be plagiarized. You can copyright a book about WWII, but you can't copyright the war itself.

Non-copyrighted art. Art that isn't restricted by copyright in any way. If you're asking the philosophical question "what is art?", then I have no answer, as all art is subjective.

There's been a lot of talk in recent years about cultural appropriation of Native American art, and that non-Native people shouldn't be allowed to create this art without permission.

Sorry, but I'm not going to track down whoever "owns" the various Navajo patterns I've used in some of my projects. If they want to go after someone, go after whoever submitted it to the needlepoint pattern books I used.

On the other hand, I've no intention of copying the patterns used in Inuit art, West Coast art, or whatever else. The fallout isn't worth it, and there are some indigenous groups who accuse other indigenous groups of stealing/copying patterns and designs.

Mind you, some of these people proudly showed off the plagiarized "artwork" they did that incorporates Baby Yoda. I guess cultural appropriation is a one-way street.

The video is a short song that's less than two minutes. Probably shorter than what you did to look up and read things lol

What's blowing my mind right now is the idea that somehow, if someone is able to write a better Harry Potter and sell their story to fans unmolested by copyright, that it's copyright that protects them when it aborts the project entirely by its sheer existence. At what point do copyright owners "own the idea" about magical schools in Scotland? How about magical schools? How about characters named Harry Potter but in a scifi world?

Any IP law kills any creative's actual intent, regardless of an effort to sell it or not.

Ursula K. LeGuin wasn't pleased that J.K. Rowling has never acknowledged that there are some aspects of Harry Potter that she did not invent - LeGuin did.

It's not unusual to see a disclaimer on a HP fanfic that goes something like this: "I don't own Harry Potter; if I did, Sirius Black wouldn't be dead." Some fanfic authors use disclaimers that basically says that whatever was invented/belongs to Rowling belongs to her, but the author asserts ownership of their own original characters, settings, and concepts they might have invented for that story.

Kinda like the disclaimer I'd be using when I finally get King's Heir finished, edited, and posted (might take another 5 years at the rate I'm going): The game's copyright is owned by Artifex Mundi/Cordelia, but the character of Lady Lyssia Ulmer belongs to me (I created her to offset the game's "Bonanza Syndrome" problem of not enough women). I can't claim to have originated the characters of the King and the Duke of Ulmer, but I created their first names. By this point I've created two new kingdoms and a few dozen new characters.

Not that I'm too worried about the actual game devs making a fuss; they've had 5 years to do a sequel and left themselves plenty of plot hooks. Since they never bothered and I want more of the story, the only way to get it is to do it myself. As long as I don't try to claim I invented the whole thing, there shouldn't be a problem. Nobody's accused me of plagiarism so far on the gaming forums where I've mentioned this project (of course I've been careful to mention that I am NOT claiming to be the copyright holder and do not intend to make any profit on this).

Genuinely not true. I can cite dozens of 100% free, 100% community-driven projects based on copyrighted works that were C&D'd (Cease and Desist) because the copyright holder didn't want it to somehow be a challenge to the copyright.

But wait, am I saying that a fanwork that is not even sold can challenge copyright?

Oh yes.

You see, the wicked serpent that is copyright operates by forcing you to defend it. Without enough vigorous defense of "your" idea, then others might be allowed to carve niches where they can sell derivatives featuring your characters so long as the media is different enough.

This means that people can't even make fan projects for free without the copyright holder needing to stop them, lest their "ownership" over the idea weakens even slightly.

This is why the Paramount suits swooped in to raid the dealer's room at the convention and confiscate all those Star Trek fanzines. It never occurred to them that fanzines aren't the same as novels, and that only a relative few copies of each title existed. It's not as though someone writing about Spock and Zarabeth or yet another story about how Sarek and Amanda met will make someone abandon professionally-written Trek in favor of the fan-produced stories. But this is something that Hollywood suits don't understand.

From the pov of putting on my archaeologist/librarian's hat, what they did that day was a travesty. Of course those fanzines would have been destroyed, and some of them may have been the only copies in existence of particular titles.

You also can’t make a song and legally say you are some specific artist and then collect the streaming revenue. But you can make your own. And you can make your own money.

Some fans complain about the fact that in TOS and TNG, the only music and drama anyone on the Enterprise listens to or performs are old Earth pieces, or Shakespeare. They wonder why there's nothing more contemporary, or why doesn't the show make up something from the 22nd century, for example.

The issue is copyright. Shakespeare is in the public domain, so it costs nothing but costumes and props to perform it. Ditto a lot of the older music the show used. I giggle every time someone praises the music in the TNG episode "The Inner Light". That tune Picard plays on his flute is an obvious ripoff of "The Skye Boat Song". Lucky for the showrunners, that song is in the public domain.

Everything is derivative. Why doesn't the inventor of musical scales get royalties? Or instruments? Why allow anything to even be in the public domain, and not allow everything and anything to be copyrightable since that's apparently the only driver of innovation? The idea that money is the reward for making a good song, or a blight-resistant potato, or a cure for cancer, and not that the realization of these things into being as the true reward, will always lead to more and more copyright and pain than anything good, because as I've said, it's easier to just start copyrighting everything you can and charging license fees rather than actually making anything new.

Good luck tracking down the inventor of musical scales. The standard ones we use nowadays aren't the same that were used in the past, or even in other regions of the world.

 

[Gorbles]

My argument is not changing at all, though? It's to abolish copyright. That's it.

Your argument I responded to was that nobody owns a thought (or idea, let's say) as all work is derivative. I'm sorry if I explained it poorly.

IP is a problem precisely because it's part of the bedrock of the capitalist concept of property. Everything, physical or not, is commodified under capitalism.

IP rights are a problem for many reasons, but also saying anyone can take anything from anything else is also explicitly a problem from the offset. It's very much the "good things innately succeed" line of thought, which is what I was trying to explore (because I disagree).

It's like saying if I think I can do a better job at owning your cat, then I should have your cat. It makes everything post-hoc by nature. "I did this and I did it better, tough luck." That's no solution to anything under capitalism.

I did ask if Plains-Cow wanted to discuss society not under capitalism, but that didn't go anywhere (not complaining, just explaining the process). And like I said, I'm not defending IP lawyering nonsense. I'm just very aware that because some people are against copyright, doesn't mean they're for something that's workable either.

If I had to divide their argument into two halves, I'm game with clicking my fingers and making IP lawyering and patent games disappear. But "nobody owns and idea and therefore it can't be stolen" I don't agree with at all. Even if I clicked my fingers and the changes I wanted, happened.

 

[Plains-Cow]

I did ask if Plains-Cow wanted to discuss society not under capitalism, but that didn't go anywhere (not complaining, just explaining the process).

When did you ask me this, and what does that have to do with abolishing copyright (which could theoretically still be done before a society becomes communist, like in a socialist society)?

 

[amadeus]

Why allow anything to even be in the public domain, and not allow everything and anything to be copyrightable since that's apparently the only driver of innovation?

But no one has made this argument that a copyright should or even could exist in perpetuity. I also don’t think that things must necessarily be drawn to the ultimate of logical conclusions—there is little I see that is inherent in man itself, so imposing a seemingly arbitrary limit on copyright is just a matter of balancing the maximizing of utility with the ability to reasonably enforce it within the constraints of time and resources.

Not as a specific reply to your post, but I think some of this could be cleared up by defining that we are not limiting the intent of copyright to an idea, but the more easily identifiable mixing of ideas and labor to produce something—no one can seriously claim ownership to the sky or the color blue as someone did earlier in the thread.

 

[Evie]

For that matter, you cannot copyright anything in perpetuity (although current copyright lengths are, in my opinion, excessive), nor can you copyright an idea, only the specific execution thereof, that is, the work created based on that idea.

You can patent an idea, but that's even mote strictly time-limited than copyright and comes with a tradeoff where you have to divulge your idea to the government and public in exchange for time-limited exclusive right to it (after which it becomes available to all) - so the point is *precisely* about NOT owning ideas forever.

Likewise, you can trademark in perpetuity (provided you keep using the trademark and renewing it), but that's limited to an identifying symbol, name or mark that uniquely identifies your business venture and not just "an idea". Has more to do with fraud prevention and false advertising (preventing people from falsely misrepresenting themselves as you) than with ownership of idea.

Frankly I am thoroughly unconvinced that Plains Cow even understands the basics of intelectual property, given how much arguing with a strawman version of IP is happening here.

 

[Hygro]

If money automatically made things good, then we would have better medicines, better food, healthier populations and happier cities wherever more of it is able to secure itself via IP "rights." Instead, we have companies that do anything possible to draaaag out thier IP "rights" and coast as long as possible on "their" purchased ideas rather than make anything new. Instead of actual progress where the reward is the good thing coming into existence, what we see are capitalist dystopias where people are crushed under power dynamics that would make a serf's head spin all while being sold Star Wars (tm) brand-partnered Dole lettuce. It's a caricature of a society, and I can't help but feel like making art about money in the end is akin to saying, "You complain about monetizing art, yet you partake in making art. Curious." The perverse nature of copyright is a pillar of capitalism in all its forms: early, late, fascism, etc.

If people want money for their art, then they can sell their physical art and ask for contributions in the form of thanks in the case of digital art if people like it enough to give some money. No copyright needed for any of that. The fear of many artists is that they won't be able to monetize their art under copyright. Ironically, abolishing copyright would probably do much more to make them money, as it allows for decentralization of ideas amongst countless local communities of fans and artists who can give money and buy art as they please rather than have to go through the only approved source for the artists' works. Same in science, physics, medicine, etc. Defense of any form of copyright inevitably leads to the system we have today.

The system we have today produces an incredible amount of incredible art that we can consume nearly for free and on demand.

We do have better medicines, foods, and healthier populations. We've had IP in the USA since the beginning and it's all come a long way. What was medicine in 1790?

It's a little weird to look back on our system and not say it has produced better medicines for example that what came before.

In the end, if someone has to get a job they aren't spending that time creating. If they know they can be compensated for their effort, they are more likely to take that risk. And if they spend the rest of their life defending their IP like Don Imus, who employs a couple dozen people full time to make sure we don't hear the Eagles he can monetize his work, sure, that's wack, but the initial incentive to have created it in the first place matters. That there is anything to defend in the first place comes from the environment that brought it forth.

Like there are two problems with intellectual property:
1) it is problematic in theory
2) even if it was perfect in theory, it is abusive in practice separately of the theory

But to get rid of intellectually property completely doesn't take us to a good theory either, and doesn't remove that there will still be abuse in the creation, distribution, and consumption of ideas.

Both getting rid of it and keeping it as is has problems that are describable in basic economic principles (rent seeking by keeping it, underproduction by getting rid of it). So I would want a new system to address those issues.

I offered one earlier in this thread. Alternatives or complements could include state subsidy or more or less regulation here and there. But having IP be legally free, only guarded by physicality or not at all, is really mixed bag that brings a lot of bad with it.

Imagine you could only have vaccines on sight by armed guards. Imagine you didn’t have vaccines.

So an alternative is needed. A removal of IP without other major changes is going to have negative consequences, the kind that we created IP laws to prevent in the first place. Like we’ve already tried that.

 

[Birdjaguar]

In an example from today's headlines: Taylor Swift lost her control of her first 6? album's content because they were sold for big money. So what is she doing? She is re-recording them under a label that she controls. Her fans are now re-buying all those albums. FU capitalism!

 

[Gorbles]

When did you ask me this, and what does that have to do with abolishing copyright (which could theoretically still be done before a society becomes communist, like in a socialist society)?

My bad, I technically said critique capitalism. This post.

Socialism isn't communism, but leaving that because that tends to annihilate threads (and I like this one), my point is that copyright abuses stem from capitalism. If you eject copyright into the void, capitalism would find other things to abuse. And the individuals - the creatives - that need to exist under capitalism would have even less protections than they already do.