[stupidthrottle]

The real tragedy is that even after having a new generation born and grown up entirely digitally and connected, we still can’t rethink copyright into something which actually makes sense based on the world we now live in.

[DennisP]

We can rethink it, we just can't get legacy institutions that profit from the old system to go along with it.

[wavepruner]

Many struggling artists I talk to want strong copyright laws. It's not just something rich corporations want.

[50656E6973]

Struggling artists have virtually zero political pull. The laws are maintained by corporate interests.

[toyg]

They provide ideological cover and propaganda support fire. Every time there is anything controversial about music copyright, artists’ associations roll out spokespersons to justify the moves, because it plays well with their members.

[linuxftw]

Anyone can be a struggling artist. It takes no skill or ambition whatsoever. It's merely a poor economic choice and deserves no pity.

[jacquesm]

But the rights organizations, nominally artists guilds do have significant political pull.

[trophycase]

Why? If someone like UMG or Disney steals their work do you really believe they will be treated fairly?

[philipov]

That's because they've been duped by the propaganda from those corporations into thinking they actually benefit from copyright.

[azinman2]

And they probably do benefit from it...

[philipov]

Not more than they are harmed by the looting of the public domain that media conglomerates are engaging in. Having a small public domain hurts everyone who can't afford a legal team to research and litigate for them. When you weigh the heavy costs against the slight benefits, it's a net loss.

[dogma1138]

I know a few artists that suffered quite a lot of theft primarily in art assets and concept work including their work being used as concept art for commercial projects and textures and 3D models even shipping in with some.

Even in such cases like bargain bin games which were made by a Russian and Chinese studios and were published in Europe by fairly large publishers and used stolen assets they had little to no legal recourse the Publisher didn’t care, the artists don’t have the money to fight a legal battle and even if they do win at best they’ll barely cover their legal fees if they even turn a profit and the game devs would just patch those assets out if they would even exist by the time the case is settled.

From their point of view it’s not that the public domain is too small but that the current copyright laws are too lax and can only be used by those with large legal teams on retainers.

[TaylorAlexander]

Just wanted to chime in that I agree with you. I had some artist friends who were pro strong copyright, but personally I don’t think they realize the vast groves of information everyone on earth is being deprived of for this scheme. We absolutely need to find ways to compensate artists but I think the cost of copyright is far too great.

[raverbashing]

Yes, there are always going to be useful idiots to buy legal solutions that mostly benefit existing institutions and lawyers

[TaylorAlexander]

I mostly just want to abandon copyright. Everything I create lately - software, robots, and writing - are released with unrestricted licenses. CC0 or BSD in most cases. I tried copyleft briefly but all it seemed to do was limit other people. I don’t want to do that anymore.

[antpls]

In theory, I believe copyright is a way for individuals to defend their rights against big corps. In practice, it will only benefit big corps which have enough resources for judicial procedures, and force individuals to give up their creations for free...

[swiley]

As a user I'm pretty thankful for copyleft.

I probably wouldn't be able to run modern Linux on the laptop I'm using right now without it.

[TaylorAlexander]

Maybe, but that’s speculative. Unless you’ve got some good examples of the BSD style of license failing where GPL has succeeded (I’d be genuinely interested!). I know GPL has had some good wins, but more and more I feel like we need to fight this battle in our culture, not through lawyers.

[jimktrains2]

The recent kerfuffles with elastic, redis, and mongo will be interesting to follow and may provide examples where a strong copyleft, e.g. agpl3, would have been better than the Apache or mit/bad style licenses initially chosen.

[swiley]

I don’t know if it’s possible for that to happen since the licenses are mutually exclusive.

There are plenty of situations where BSD (or similar) lisenced software is used and the changes are not published.

[jimktrains2]

Just to clarify, you don't need to provide changes to GPL software if you're not distributing said software and only using it internally.

However, in case something ends up being distributed and because I don't believe that's been tested in the courts, many companies have blanket policies against the inclusion of copyleft licenses.

[imtringued]

That's also what I'm trying to do. Don't like non permissive copyright? Then just avoid it. However these filters are a threat to free software and the public domain. It wouldn't surprise me if github will wrongly take down projects in the future.

[mindslight]

Generation has little to do with it. It's not the librarians who promulgated those stern warnings around the photocopiers providing support for the way things are, but rather the huge companies that continue to rake in gobs of money by claiming to own pieces of our culture in perpetuity.

[delinka]

I don't really get this "pieces of our culture" argument. I see it often in these discussions. Something "became part of our culture" after someone created it, after ownership was known, and 'we' allowed it to become meaningful to a large audience. Should that somehow transfer the ownership to those who find it more meaningful?

Some brands are "cultural icons" (like it or not), but that doesn't mean the culture has any right to tell the brand owner what to do with their trademark.

[amanaplanacanal]

I don't know the history of copyright in other countries, but in the US copyright is explicitly to encourage the creation of artifacts that will then end up as public domain and part of our cultural legacy.

If it isn't performing that function well, then it's probably time for a rethink.

[Tsubasachan]

While you rethink it Disney is writing checks to politicians.

[andjd]

The notion that everything that can be digitalized should be free is a pernicious notion and trivializes the effort creators put into their work. Journalists, musicians, authors, and artists deserve to be able to make a living from their work, and they can't do that if their work is distributed for free.

[JulianMorrison]

There is a vast gap between "able to make a living" and "able to stifle culture, censor citizenship, and lock up works for longer than a lifetime".

TBH, it's probably better to create a post scarcity society where a living isn't dependent on holding something hostage. Some variation of a basic income, that would support artists to create. But we don't have to go that far to say, copyright as it stands now is over-mighty and should have its claws harshly trimmed.

[etaioinshrdlu]

China seems to do okay without much in the way of professional journalists, musicians, authors, and artists.

I'm not saying it's right, but it should be pointed out that it can still work.

China has structured their society to operate without much copyright enforcement.

It should make people think about what kind of society they want.

[barry-cotter]

China has plenty of professional journalists, musicians, authors and artists. China's newspapers are heavily censored and vehicles for propaganda but people still write for them. Musicians make money in China the same way they do in the West, gigging. Rampant piracy doesn’t stop people trying and occasionally succeeding in making a living as authors or artists either, anymore than the small chance of making a good living at it in the West does.

[etaioinshrdlu]

But think broadly about how the Western world utterly dominates music and movies. It is probably due to copyright.

[barry-cotter]

No it isn't. It’s because no one speaks Mandarin and Chinese music and movies are dreadful by comparison. One of the hardest things about studying Chinese is finding media to watch to improve listening comprehension that are actually enjoyable to someone used to Western levels of quality in production, writing and story telling. Khatzumoto of AllJapaneseAllTheTime.com took s break from learning Mandarin and learned Cantonese instead because the corpus of good movies is better, and it’s mostly pre-handover Hong Kong stuff. Widespread censorship leads to terrible movies.

I live in China and I’d say it’s plausible that people watch more Japanese, Korean and Anglophone media than Chinese, dubbed and subtitled. I wouldn’t bet on it but it’s at least 30%. Chinese tv and movies are dreadful.

[imtringued]

Try quan zhi gao shou.

(I dont know the difference between mandarin and cantonese so sorry if im wrong)

[zimpenfish]

Movies? Bollywood movies sell more tickets in India than Hollywood does in US+Canada, releases more movies, etc. Sure, they make less money but India is considerably poorer than US+Canada.

[SimbaOnSteroids]

Well I'd hope a country with 1.4b would sell more tickets domestically than a country with 330m.

[jonahx]

First: The legitimate rights of a free press, and an absolute stand against censorship.

Then: The rights of the content creators to make a living.

Not the other way around.

[amanaplanacanal]

> Journalists, musicians, authors, and artists deserve to be able to make a living from their work

At least in the US, that is not the purpose of copyright. The constitution lays out why congress has the power to grant copyrights and patents:

> To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries

[rdlecler1]

Maybe they just need a new business model. Google gives away plenty for free and they’re doing fine.

[bhhaskin]

Google gives nothing away for free. If you're not paying for it, you're the product.

[Iolaum]

You can still be the product even if you are paying for it. Take smart TVs for example that monetize their customers post purchase.

[buzzerbetrayed]

It is surprising to me that someone on hacker news believes this.

[pound]

they're doing fine not because of giving away plenty for free.

[throwaway13000]

The will also run into same problem, but they will be last man standing

[flatfilefan]

This is patently wrong. But your problem is that you don’t supply any argument to support your statement so there’s nothing to discuss.

[dingaling]

> a new generation born and grown up entirely digitally and connected

The 'new generation' seems to want to sit on their collective arses and watch movies & music for free, but not contribute to the cost of their creation.

I'm all ears as to why their selfish, immediate-gratification desires should be considered.

'The old business model is broken!' they exclaim. Well then, stop consuming its output and go out there and CREATE better content. But most of them decline to do so. Hypocrites.

[lgrebe]

With more than 100.000 millennials taking to the streets in parts of Europe alone [0], and many suggestions on how to do it differently and better, ignored by „the internet is a series of tubes“ politicians, your claim of „collective passive consumption arse sitting“ doesn’t sit right with me.

[0] https://www.dw.com/en/eu-copyright-bill-protests-across-euro...

[tomhoward]

That "new generation" seems perfectly happy paying for Netflix, Spotify, Apple Music, etc.

They also seem happy to create content on Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube, etc, with a handful of them becoming stars as big as the pop stars and TV/movie stars of earlier generations.

Attributing simplistic traits to entire generations, comprising hundreds of millions of people spanning many different countries, cultures and classes, never really goes well.

At any point in time, people just choose the most appealing and cost-effective options of those available to them.

It's up to those offering products and services to make their economic model work, but the ability of the big content companies to generate big revenues, either via subscriptions or advertising, shows that there are various models that can work well.

[tomjen3]

I don't think people have an issue with contributing to the cost of creation, at least enough movies etc are being made and paid for that they are still making money.

As for changing the system, the current problem with copyright is that it mixes control and payment, leading to stupid things like HBO not being available unless you pay for a gazillon channels you don't need.

I see a future where producers have to declare their prizes, but must offer the same deal to anybody who is willing to buy it. Any exlusive deal is automatically a violation of monopoly laws.

[imtringued]

If you create content that does not follow the old business model then it will get blocked by the upload filters. Now this is truly hypocritical!

[tuxxy]

Unnecessary.