[cannabis_sam]

The ONLY reason these disgusting predators can colonize human cultural output like this is the antisocial, and tremendously stupid copyright laws enacted.

It always makes me wonder why people want a tiny cartel of companies to own humanity’s music culture, and subsequently be able to bully companies like Spotify, Youtube and others into enforcing extrajudicial policies that maintain the cartel’s dominance.

Like, seriously, what is the perceived societal value here???

[IndySun]

So the answer to 'disgusting predators' is to declare all 'art' (ludicrous distinction, why not everything, and why art?) free? Why not go after the 'disgusting predators' instead?

[kragen]

you seem to be suggesting that abolishing copyright is tantamount to abolishing private property

this is obviously nonsense; no human society is known without private property, though there are extremely well-attested societies without writing, without farming, without war, without monogamy, without women, and without clothing

by contrast, all human societies were free of copyright for hundreds of thousands of years until 313 years ago, and in practice most still are

nobody is suggesting making it legal to carry away other people's paintings, records, and books because they are 'art'

we are suggesting making it reliably legal to copy them, because the freedom to reproduce art is something that nobody should ever be denied; retelling stories you've been told, and perhaps playing music you've heard, is as fundamental to being human as private property is. laws granting monopolies on stories and songs for the sake of profit are an intolerable abomination

[thethimble]

Without women?? Genuinely curious how this is sustainable.

[kragen]

athos. religious recruitment from other societies. may end soon but it's lasted over a millennium

[account42]

I'm not sure if a community that is dependent on the outside for replenishment can really be called an independent society.

[kragen]

i didn't say athos was an independent society; i'm just talking about culturally distinct societies, and which features do and do not seem to be universal across all of them. certainly nobody can doubt that the monks of mount athos have cultural traditions that strongly distinguish them from even other orthodox monks, much less nearby towns, but they still have their own rooms and robes. monks in the idiorrhythmic sketes can own quite a bit more than that, as i understand it, and in no case do monks steal personal property from visitors, as they would do if they rejected the concept of private property entirely

very few communities have not been "dependent on the outside from replenishment" within recorded history; even before recorded history, bronze-age mesopotamian kingdoms were evidently dependent on tin imported from cornwall, without which their rule would have collapsed

even deep into the stone age we have strong evidence of long-distance trading of prime knapping flint, but it's harder to know if communities were dependent on it; maybe if their trade routes were cut, they would have made do with lower-quality local flint

(just to disambiguate, this is not evidence that these ancient societies had private property; they might have been trading only their collective property. but they do seem to have made their tools of daily use from materials imported from other societies)

there are autarkic societies (the man of the hole, north sentinel island, the toromona, perhaps the himarimã, arguably north korea) but they are very much the exception, and have been for millennia, if not longer

i don't see that importing the young people that you need to perpetuate your society is particularly different from importing food or weapons. nobody doubts that argentina continued being a distinct society during the late 19th and early 20th century, despite mass immigration from europe increasing its population severalfold https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_Argentina#Featu...

[jazzyjackson]

You are free to repeat what you've heard, are you not?

So where do you draw the line and say "no, this is intellectual property, you are not allowed to take it with you"

(For my own part I've been coming around to thinking of it as a consent framework and not a property framework. I might refrain from distributing photos I have a copy of because someone in the photo asked me not to. Or delete a video I took at a kareoke bar because the singer is embarrased - not because they own the content and can sue me for distributing it, but because I want to be respectful of someone else's wishes.)

[zdragnar]

The value of art is in the experience of observing it (excepting the case of proxy transactions for money laundering).

A picture or video of a bike doesn't substitute for an actual bike if you need to ride it to the store.

An illicit digital copy of a song, however, is pretty fungible for an officially licensed digital copy.

I am much more inclined to suggest we look for better business models to support creators than compel them to live in poverty for my amusement (or deny their children the right to manage their estate).

[amelius]

Yes, it was a mistake. But now these companies have power and the law won't change.

[lotsoweiners]

Because normal people don’t care about “human cultural output” or “societal value” and think people who use those kinds of terms sound like blowhards. The rest of us just want reasonably cheap, convenient entertainment. Artists and others in the music biz want to get paid. Nothing here that is very hard to understand.

[uni_rule]

This point would work better if the vast majority of artists actually were paid well.

[mixmastamyk]

Normal people do like free stuff it turns out. And typically not going to pay when it's ancient anyway. Instead of going without, they could give it a try. They'd like that too—if they knew it was possible and even encouraged.

[IndySun]

Can you please add a link to your free art, movie, album, musical, and/or poem. Or do you only supply links to other peoples said art?

[tux3]

Some people like creating enough that they'll even do it for free, as a hobby, sometimes in addition to doing in professionally and getting paid good money for it. Sometimes it's drawings, sometimes it's music, sometimes it's software on www.github.com.

But I'm not sure the point of asking people to link their own free work in context, how would that change the discussion? Is the proposal to gatekeep who can access the Internet Archive and share links to other people's art on whether they're enough of an artist themselves?

If you think it's wrong for people to archive old art that's not sold anymore, it seems to me that should hold regardless of whether the archivist has a Devianart and a Bandcamp account of their own

[IndySun]

"some people" like creating art for free. They presumably would be people who do not need to create art for money, ergo?

(typo)

[tux3]

I'm not really sure I understand why I should suppose that. I've seen people in every category, who started with a passion and did or did not turn it into a job, and did or did find the time to keep making art for the love of it

You can do art for money or not, I just don't see how you're trying to relate this to archival of music that is no longer sold, whose authors aren't around anymore. I get the impression you're trying to ask people who archive art whether they make art themselves, but I fail to see the point. Very possibly they do, but then so what?

[mixmastamyk]

You missed the part where we are talking about ancient work and dead people. Think—Hitchcock movies.

My personal software is floss BTW.

[ponderings]

I don't like answering questions with questions but how would you know it is mine? How do you firmly tie the license to the art work? How do you tie parts of a remix to different licenses? How do the songs on my security camera work? How do we record the licenses onto the security footage? Can we play security camera footage at someones funeral? If not, how do we obtain the license so that we may pay the right conglomerate?

[beej71]

I'm always happy to drop links to my free (beer) books, no SEO, DRM, ads, or tracking. Simply knowledge for the sake of knowledge.

But it's kinda OT on this thread and feels too much like blatant self-promotion, so I'll refrain. :)