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Now, I don't have a college degree, but with my 60+ years life experience I can say, yes, copyright is a real thing, it protects people who create, from assholes and AI. There, I've stolen your post. Did copyright protect you? No, it did not. Copyright is an idea we came up with that sounded good at the time, and it's come to pass at this point that the original idea was deeply flawed in ways we could never have predicted, but now can see clearly in hindsight. The truth is, intellectual property should be protected by those creating it. Coke does a great job of this, as do many, many other companies. We call these "trade secrets", but ultimately the concept is the same. You're protecting the work you deem worth protecting. I don't buy the notion that copyright ever protected the creator. What it really protected was the interests of the entities who effectively enslave the creators via contract, and is not of any tangible benefit to the creators themselves. If one truly cares about the artisans among us, one cannot justify the existence of our ideas surrounding copyright. Yes, removing those laws from our doctrine would cause upheaval, as the market must then rebalance itself in the absence of the artificial pressure we've put on it, but in time all things find equilibrium again, and placing the value and responsibility back on the individual is, in my mind, simple human decency. |
The whole point of government and laws and societal norms is that not everyone has to be deeply involved and specialized in protecting their rights. We default to people doing the right thing and seek out specialists (e.g. lawyers) when we're wronged.