[gojomo]

At the founding of the US, copyright was for 14 years, with optional extension to 28. Lobbying since then has extended it, in many cases, to over 100 years, and via repeated extension, potentially to a de facto infinite term. That was kind of greedy.

Every copyright holder has a mini-monopoly in the production (aka reproduction) of their own content. It is a well-established result in economics that a monopolist provides a price/quantity combination which maximizes their own profits, but not the total welfare of both the producer and consumer. (With competitive providers, under usual and fairly reasonable assumptions, the price/quantity of a good traded trends towards a level maximizing overall welfare.) So the very idea of "intellectual property" as little monopolies-on-reproduction is in service of rightsholder greed, maximizing their profits at the expense of others, often beyond necessary creative costs or incentives.

Granting such monopolies may have been a necessary compromise when copying and distribution was costly. A better system that maximizes returns for a larger group should be possible today.

[dexy]

Unfortunately, I've yet to hear a convincing alternative incentive scheme to that of copyrights and patents. The necessity of copyright and patent law varies widely from industry to industry, and the limited expertise (and interest) of legislators keeps them from taking any bold steps adjust the law to better fit the intricate needs of the people (ie, short/no patents in industries that move quickly and communally, like software, and longer patents for industries like pharmaceutical development, that are immensely costly and provide limited network effects to the first mover (a drug's prices decline by 90% in the US when it goes off patent).

People view copyright as less essential than patents, but the truth of the matter is that without copyright laws, there would be a significant decline in the production of movies, music, games, and many other costly mediums. Without copyright, I could legally create a competitor to netflix that paid studios nothing and played every movie ever made on any device for close to nothing. I could create a competitor to steam that distributed games and was every bit as useful and integrated, and I'd pay nothing to developers. Even if you think online piracy isn't as big of a problem as studios claim it is (and you'd be very right), the laws that keep it illegal are all that stand between today and a collapse of the content development ecosystem.

Even if copyright doesn't maximize for society's benefit because of the monopoly it creates, every copyrighted work sold is a net plus to both the consumer and the producer. Without any copyright framework, there's a significant chance that the producer could never afford to make that beneficial product in the first place. Even if you only eliminate prosecution of people/entities that don't make any money from what they're doing and allow non-profits like wikipedia to host full movies, you still irreparably break the incentive system that exists today. Maybe we don't need new movies and games, but people want them and as long as that's the case they'll want to keep protecting them with copyright.

Maybe someday, systems more like kickstarter could replace copyright, but I highly doubt it. They don't do nearly as good of a job.

That said, I'm all for much shorter terms for copyrights and the elimination of software patents.

[literalusername]

…without copyright laws, there would be a significant decline in the production of movies, music, games, and many other costly mediums.

I disagree. What were talking about here is art, and mankind has been producing art since long before government-guarded IP. It isn't because IP laws provide an incentive that we create things; we do it because it's human nature. The ability to freely copy other people's work lowers the barrier to entry, so eliminating IP laws would spur a creative renaissance. The only downside is those big media companies would be forced to innovate.

[dexy]

Would people still create cave paintings without copyright? Absolutely. Songs? Yes. Books? Fewer, but probably yes. Multi-million dollar movies and games? Absolutely not.

Art would still exist, but it would exist much differently than it does today. Free copying does allow for more creative freedom in many respects, though I would argue many of those benefits can already be had through current fair-use practices, which are quite extensive.

I've often heard the argument thrown around that "the world could live without another Transformers 2." I don't know if you fall into that camp, but many people really enjoyed that movie. In aggregate they were willing to pay more to see it than ~99.999% of individuals globally produce in a lifetime. If big-budget movies, pop stars, and games cease to exist, other things will surely take their place, but they won't be the same and most media will start to look a lot more like youtube and less like hollywood. Most people probably don't want that.

People need incentives to do things. Incentives are probably the second most powerful force in the universe, after compounding interest :), and a lack of them is why communism fails. People are not benevolent. They do derive utility from things other than money, but money is able to coordinate the interests of many individuals from disparate backgrounds under a common goal. Other things can too, and the Linux OS I'm running right now is a testament to that, but Linux can exist in a world with copyright while Transformers 2 most likely cannot. At least not until everybody in the world is a lot richer and making Transformers 2 is a lot easier.

[nickik]

I think this is to some extents true for big movies and games but in longer terms some system will build up how to fund these project. No copyright does not mean that there will not be any contracts. You can still produce a movie and sell it to somebody, people cant copy it if they don't have it. For exampe a groupe of movietheaters could get together and fund a project, they will be the only ones who have the movie in a good quality. People still buy stuff even without copyright. Systems like steam would probebly still work, consol games would probebly still work. My pridiction would be: First a downfall to almost nothing then systems develop that still make some of those things possible in a smaller scala, these systems will get better over time.

[dexy]

You should realize that what you're advocating is much worse than the current copyright system. You say that movie studios should produce a movie, lock it up extra tight and only show let theaters show it in high quality. If the movie is never leaked, then you're hurting everyone who would rather have paid to watch that movie on DVD, or through paid digital download, or off of Netflix. You're saying people should hide information and limit how it's disseminated even more instead of sharing it for a price. Yes, with contracts you could still have DVDs and require purchasers of them to agree to the contract and pay if they're caught sharing it. With contracts, you can do everything that's possible under copyright EXCEPT punish the freeloaders. Once something gets leaked, everybody who shares it from then on is free of any culpability, because they never signed a contract. This leaves us in essentially the exact same place we started. Either everything will be locked down tight and less useful to the public or else it will instantly be leaked, and then the leaked information will be sold/distributed legally where now it cannot be and the system will break.

[literalusername]

…most media will start to look a lot more like youtube and less like hollywood.

The difference between youtube and Hollywood is such a chasm only because of IP laws. Hollywood is a superstar market. It's filled with aspiring artists waiting tables because the barrier to entry has been artificially inflated.

Hollywood hates innovation. Transformers 3 could be funded in a myriad of ways that have never been attempted. But because they'd rather lock down IP laws, the entire economy suffers.

A world without IP protection is not a world in which there is no money to be made; It's a world in which new business models need to be innovated.

[capisce]

Those movies could still get made, if a large enough group of people pledged to fund the production of the movie. The fact that other people would then get to watch it for free wouldn't deter those pledgers, if their interest in that movie concept was high enough. It would be a different kind of model, but it could work.

[Anderkent]

In a trade between freedom of information and Transformers 3 I will choose the freedom.

[dexy]

Freedom of information is only useful to those who can use it. Most people do not gain much from free information, as they can't make money with it and they're not interested in learning from it. They gain more from the entertainment Transformers provides. In the world we on Hacker News live in, freedom of information is much much more valuable than it is to the vast majority of mankind. Because of its value to us, things like open source and wikipedia exist, where people share things freely because everyone benefits so much from that ecosystem. I'm commenting here right now because I benefit from this ecosystem and want to do my part to keep it going. The beauty is, as I said before, that this can all exist in spite of copyright. Louis C.K. can make a ton of money without needing to use DRM or enforce his copyrights. People can choose not to use the system, and do so to great success. But some things require the system to exist, and those things don't need to be sacrificed. Vote with your dollars not by pirating but by supporting content that is open source, or that doesn't use DRM. Pirating more convinces the powers that be that it's a growing problem, supporting content made by people who aren't draconian hoarders of information will encourage more to be open with their content.

[CJefferson]

While you might think that, that is not how you want to argument phrasing to the general public. I am completely sure they would choose Transformers 3.

[tzs]

> The ability to freely copy other people's work lowers the barrier to entry, so eliminating IP laws would spur a creative renaissance

You lost me. What would being able to freely copy lower the barrier to entry of? How would it spur a creative renaissance?

[literalusername]

To use software as an example, it's much easier to improve upon someone else's work when their work is open source. You fork it and improve it -- much easier than building it from scratch. This process also aids in learning how to write good software, by becoming familiar with other people's techniques.

On the other hand, if you're afraid that using someone else's work can result in a huge fine, then you're less likely to do the project at all. If you choose to do it anyway, you'll have a lot more work to do. There is a higher barrier to entry.

[tzs]

Software doesn't really make your point, because eliminating copyright would not make all software open source. In fact, it would most likely cause a shift toward closed source as companies could take open source and use it in closed products without having to release their modified source.

[literalusername]

As much as I want to refute this, I have to admit you have a good point.

[njs12345]

Mashup artists, for example, would be able to use a much greater variety of samples if IP laws were less restrictive.

[frobozz]

"A significant decline", not a total collapse. Prior to IP laws, individuals took matters into their own hands to prevent losses due to plagiarism. I wouldn't be surprised if the removal of legal protection would lead to more ubiquitous and intrusive DRM.

That said, one potential advantage is that if content is being produced simply because creation is human nature, rather than because a similar item sold well last year; it could lead to higher quality output.

[wisty]

I hate to sound like a fundamentalist economist, but ...

There's a demand for movies. If you cut off the source, fans will make their own. They won't be the same (lower budgets), and their distribution will be different (initially theatres, protected by contracts), and they will have more product placements, but they will still be there. You won't have LOTR, but you will still have low budget talky stuff, suspense thrillers, and so on.

Eventually, animation techniques will allow fans to collaboratively make big budget special effect movies.

If movie company's wanted, they could survive quite well on theatre takings, and release stuff on DVD simply as collector items (after they movies are leaked online anyway). They would have to make cutbacks, but they'd still survive.

The main difference is - what a consumer does in their own home should be sacrosanct. Telling a theatre not to leak a movie (as part of a commercial contract) is fine, but attacking consumers for ripping a DVD they bought is not.

[dexy]

There's also a huge demand for flights to the moon. Nobody supplies it because it'd be too expensive. Same thing for a LOTR that you couldn't charge for.

Where do you draw the line? Commercial entities? I'm sure I could raise funding for a non-profit that offered every ebook ever written for download. That would single-handedly destroy the ebook industry.

I never said movies would go away, but you wouldn't have Transformers and you wouldn't have LOTR. As you said, you'd have movies that are more locked-down in their distribution and you'd have more ads and product placement in films. All for what? So that you can freely share those films to lower your entertainment budget? So that indie films can take more market share because you prefer them? Because copyright law is already largely unenforceable?

I'm all for more lax punishment for piracy, lower fines, etc. I'm not for eliminating IP law.

[hxa7241]

> but the truth of the matter is that without copyright laws, there would be a significant decline in the production of movies, music, games, and many other costly mediums

It might seem very intuitive to say such things, but it is not truth. The truth is that the economic evidence is just not there. What do Landes & Posner say?

"Economic analysis has come up short of providing either theoretical or empirical grounds for assessing the overall effect of intellectual property law on economic welfare." -- 'The economic structure of intellectual property law'; Landes, Posner; 2003. Conclusion, p422, s3.

That means we do not know whether it does good overall. Hard to quite believe? Well there it is.

[dexy]

Landes & Posner also never advocated abolishing copyrights altogether... They just advocated moving to renewable terms instead of automatic 70 years to life.

Regardless of whether there is a decline in production, there would be a certain decline in production of high-quality, expensive content. If you think expensive to produce != high quality, you're wrong. Expensive content is only produced because it earns more money, and thus is better liked by more people. That's the only objective measure of quality I know.

[tzs]

> Granting such monopolies may have been a necessary compromise when copying and distribution was costly. A better system that maximizes returns for a larger group should be possible today

That's actually backwards. The more costly copying and distribution are, the LESS you need any kind of copyright protection, because the original author/publisher can capture almost all of the market value before the copiers can get their copies produced.

There was a famous article on this by Stephen Breyer, before he was a Supreme Court Justice: Stephen Breyer (1970). "The Uneasy Case for Copyright: A Study of Copyright in Books, Photocopies, and Computer Programs". Harvard Law Review 84 (2): 281–355

I tried to find an online copy of this, but failed.

[gojomo]

That's interesting; I'll have to think about that. However, I'm not sure it holds except to the extent that the copying is slow and the buyers impatient. Then, the first batch captures enough of the market to incent the author.

But if most of the market is patient enough to await the arrival of slow-copycats, the initial investment in the 'first batch' (by not just the creator but the publisher/wholesaler/retailer is in danger, and thus deterred without copyright. In fact, large losses could be incurred being stuck with an inventory that's later undercut. Fears of such losses could cut off a gradual build to popularity before it starts.

Digital reproduction/dissemination eliminates the need for most of that 'first batch' investment and all the downside risk of production/inventory; only the creation itself must be incentivized. All the other once-necessary costs no longer need a legal hack (statutory monopoly) as a sort of subsidy.

I'll have to look at the Breyer reasoning to know what factors dominate under which assumptions.