Because it does far more harm than good. Enforcement of copyright requires all kinds of authoritarianism and infringement upon people's rights to use their own property/devices, which hardly seems a fair trade just for more entertainment media. Especially when there are enough creatives out there who do the work purely for passion that'd we'd never run out of media to consume even if nobody could use copyright to profit from it.
Copyright also applies on media that is not for entertainment or "consumption". Where would the money come from to pay for important news reporting, for example? There are a lot of people in this world who are not hackers and have other needs.
As somebody who grew up in the time of government-only media, let me assure you that you don't want the world to regress to that. Copyrighted information is better than no information.
I broadly agree with the underlying sentiment, however this is a classic false dichotomy espoused by people and interests heavily invested in maintaining the status quo. I would argue that news organizations like ProPublica could exist without copyright, and does not rely on public funds. NPR and PBS are publicly subsidized, but not to the extent that they are obliged to operate as state media (or can even be credibly accused of bowing under pressure from government actors). It’s a convenient myth that copyright is somehow inevitable or necessary, or that it fosters creative endeavors.
Sure, if we lived in a society that valued people enough intrinsically to support them regardless of their value in the capitalist marketplace... But we don't. Too bad people need to eat and pay their rent.
Lots of drugs cost little to manufacture but lots to develop. Ideally the costs for robust research and manufacturing of pharmaceuticals would be shared by all people equally because we all benefit from improving the human condition... But they're not. And since pharmaceutical companies can't just blow a whole bunch of money on research for things that will bring them no money, they charge enough for the pill to make their money back, and unfortunately, usually, far beyond that until it's able to be made generically. I believe that windfall profits from prices that keep people from treatment are wrong. But allowing everyone to make new drugs developed by other pharmaceutical companies to sell at generic prices would just mean those companies wouldn't research new drugs... Win? Not without a way in-place to replace that research. And anyone considering some glib argument questioning the value of new drugs, you're full of shit. Not every new drug is a Viagra knock-off.
Lots of people in the tech crowd have adopted this convenient romantic notion that real art must be non-commercial, and that all real art is made by people toiling in obscurity, driven solely by the need for self-expression and the distant hope that they'll someday be discovered, become famous, and have their name in art history books... Or even that hobby art could replace professional art. That, of course, is complete bullshit. Art is no different than any other intellectual pursuit and equating VFX artists for AAA game titles and professional session musicians to weekend basement studio oil painters and people with hobby bands is like equating immigration attorneys writing depositions and technical writers to people who are serious about their personal fanfic blogs.
Saying we need to abolish copyright means the things that are copyrighted have enough value to want; demanding we do that without first demanding an alternate way to support people who do intellectual work is a self-absorbed demand for free stuff. Saying they should get another job and continue to produce that valuable work for free— like a public slave in ancient Rome— is not an answer any ethical adult could entertain in good faith.
Clearly this person thinks people base their moral opinions solely on what would make them more money. "It's impossible to get a man to understand something when his paycheck depends on him not understanding it."
> Especially when there are enough creatives out there who do the work purely for passion that'd we'd never run out of media to consume even if nobody could use copyright to profit from it.
“Because I think people should work for free to entertain me”
"I deserve automatic compensation (rent) for 100+ years for any one who consumes this media just because I recorded any bit of audio, put one mark on a paper, or created 1 frame of a motion picture."
> "I deserve automatic compensation (rent) for 100+ years for any one who consumes this media just because I recorded any bit of audio, put one mark on a paper, or created 1 frame of a motion picture."
Pure straw man argument.
Nobody is talking about “automatic compensation”. Nobody is getting paid for putting “one make on a paper” if nobody wants to buy it.
People get to price their works. If you don’t like the price or don’t think it’s worth it, you don’t pay for it. Nobody gets “automatic compensation” if nobody wants to buy their work. These are such obvious ground truths that you’re ignoring for the sake of trying to make a strained point.
Sorry, you’re not entitled to the output of other people’s labor for free, just like I’m not entitled to the output of your labor for free.
I'm pretty sure copyright law in it's current form was lobbied by the mouse company™ rather than individuals.
> just because I recorded any bit of audio, put one mark on a paper, or created 1 frame of a motion picture
What's your opinion on books, for example, where almost all the work was done by an individual? Do they deserve lifetime compensation or similar?
Disney might be a big name behind it, but don't let that fool you into thinking individuals haven't tried to shape this too, see Sonny Bono for one. But you can also look around at the current massive fight over AI and see a lot of individuals who are fighting very hard for stronger enforcement of copyright in its current form. Even here in the tech community we see a lot of people wanting to keep their public sites and code from being used in these models, which is a significant change from the "Information wants to be free" days of yore.
IMHO it should be similar timeframes to patents, for all media types, and network infrastructure should not bear the responsibility to enforce it.
For things requiring lots of research and development, I think some mechanism should exist to document and extend the period, or "pay per year" scheme, but no longer than 30 years.
What is the point of art entirely, in the context of telling me what I can do and watch with my own Internet connected computing/media devices? Should we fully subsidsize anyone who calls themselves an artist? Should we track all media usage for this purpose?
> What is the point of art entirely, in the context of telling me what I can do and watch with my own Internet connected computing/media devices?
It’s fascinating to see people in this thread pretend like art exists in a vacuum and act like the people who created it shouldn’t be involved in the equation at all.
Something tells me those same people would get very upset if we suggested their own work, code, or labor should be freely used by anyone who wanted to, including their employer. I’m guessing they like to be paid for their work. They just don’t like paying other people for their work.
> Should we fully subsidsize anyone who calls themselves an artist?
Why are you trying to talk about subsidies and how people identify?
You’re throwing out straw man arguments to try to distract from the real point: People get to decide how much to charge for their work. If you don’t want to pay that amount, you are not entitled to receive it for free.
The way some people are pretending like they have a moral entitlement to the labor of other people in this thread is wild.
If this was true, people wouldn’t try to pirate copyrighted content because they’d be busy with this supposed abundance of free creative media.
People pirate because they want content that other people produced with the expectation of getting paid.
People like getting paid for their work. I suspect you do, too, but you think that people who do creative work don’t deserve to be paid because you are the consumer.
As Valve's Gabe Newell once said: piracy is a service problem. As such, if the paid for version provides a good service, people will use that instead. Lots of stuff getting pirated doesn't even get consumed, and people don't have unlimited money. Not as if people would've suddenly bought everything they pirated. That is a pipe dream.
IMO copyright should be drastically shortened, and should possibly have a mechanism for varying the length based on the application - for instance, aerospace software can take literal decades just to be permitted for use, so if the copyright only lasts 10 years then aerospace software basically isn't covered.
In contrast, perhaps the average videogame might need only five years of copyright to sufficiently incentivize their production. Hypothetically. In such a scenario, there's no one-size-fits-all solution, so we need a different system than just a flat copyright duration.
While I agree in theory, I'm afraid that disputes over what is sufficient in what industry would result in 10 years for one kind of work, 40 for another, and 5 for yet another. I would accept a one-size-fits-all solution in the form of a lowest-common-denominator which simultaneously is much closer to the original US copyright term. Surely 15 years of monopoly privileges after publishing - or 20 years after writing/making, whichever is sooner - is sufficient. (No extensions, although I might accept something like Bill Willingham's proposal of giving licensees 10 years total and max [1].) If that's not enough incentive then the prospective author isn't confident that the work would sell well in the best conditions, and a government should not further distort a market to make an at-best-poorly-selling product sell well.
It should also be strictly limited to original works, not vaguely applied to "derivatives." A cover of a song should be considered an original work, and not infringing upon the original. As should a song that uses sections of melody or samples.
I'd also say that durations should be shorter than the original terms, due to the much higher volume of works produced today and greater accessibility of those tools. 5-10 from publication at the most.
After all, a massive supply of something with a relatively static demand simply means it has a lower value than it once did.
Because it's not private property. When something is a private property, that means that if I have 100% of it, you have 0% of it. That doesn't happen with, for example, songs. I can have 100% of a song and listen to it as much as I want and that doesn't mean you can't have and listen that song as well.
Copyright (and patents) are a limited monopoly granted by the state, thus they are inherently immoral, as everything that any government does, as they do that by the use of force.
Other way to look at it is that ideas are not scarce at all and it's copyright/patents/the government that creates scarcity where there's abundance.
We only have it to promote useful arts and science. With more books than you can read in a lifetime is copyright necessary? Is it the most useful way to ensure more art is created considering the cost?