[logicchains]

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.

[carlosjobim]

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.

[logicchains]

>Where would the money come from to pay for important news reporting, for example

Governments and private individuals already produce plenty of news without relying on income from copyright. The BBC is publicly funded.

[carlosjobim]

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.

[nativeit]

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.

[chefandy]

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.

[renzobanks]

clearly this person does not make a living from things that they made that are protected by copyright laws.

[logicchains]

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."

[prepend]

It makes sense as if someone thinks that copyright is unethical, they wouldn’t want to make a living from it.

Would you also complain that someone doesn’t understand bombmaking because they aren’t using it for their livelihood?

[Aurornis]

> 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”

[tenebrisalietum]

"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."

[Aurornis]

> "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.

[tenebrisalietum]

Royalty relates to copyright sufficiently enough to not make this a straw man.

[alstonite]

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?

[tpmoney]

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.

[tenebrisalietum]

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.

[9dev]

That misses the point of art entirely, and it isn’t broadly true. Anything seems easy in retrospect.

[tenebrisalietum]

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?

[Aurornis]

> 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.

[tenebrisalietum]

Good art will outlive its creator - either in the form of the work itself or through inspirations to others. The relation between a work of art and its creator cannot be "ownership like the physical sense" forever.

> 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

For the record, I think it should work like this: I'm an artist. You want art from me. You tell me what you want, I create it, you pay me. This is straightforward and obvious.

> 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.

It costs many dollars to make copy 1 of Y. You worked, you should get paid for copy 1.

It costs 0 dollars to make copy 2 of something. Anything you think you should receive above 0 for copy 2 is only justifiable with moral entitlements to the money of other people.

[logicchains]

It's not about what I think; it's a fact that there's an abundance of creative media produced by people not getting paid for it.

[Aurornis]

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.

[Fnoord]

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.

[beej71]

I'm looking for free, modern feature-length sci-fi movies and novels produced by passionate people who don't want to get paid. Where do I find them?

[aleph_minus_one]

> I'm looking for free, modern feature-length sci-fi movies and novels produced by passionate people who don't want to get paid.

For movies: here is one (a Megaman fan film):

> http://bluecorestudios.com/videos/?watch=videos_10_megaman-f...

> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcLqmH77g_s

See also https://megaman.fandom.com/wiki/Mega_Man_(Fan_Film)

[beej71]

Well, that's one.

[disintegore]

Cheap bad faith answer